Ululare Cantus
by Jubella
Summary: Rachel and Quinn are attacked by a wild animal in a Glee Club camping trip. They lose memory of an entire day every month and it doesn't take long before Rachel starts to investigate.
1. Prologue

_Prologue._

"Mr. Schuester, Artie's chair got stuck in mud again!"

This camping trip was a stupid, stupid idea. Quinn knew it as soon as her foot connected with the mud that went all the way up to her ankle. It had been a wet, rainy week in Lima, and the forest and field were covered in mud and the air was full of mosquitos and she had to share a seat with a pouting Finn the whole ride to the outskirts of Lima. Were they were supposed to bound. But of course, that wouldn't happen with a grumpy Finn, Brittany bouncing between Santana and Artie while one glared and the other still stole glances at Tina and Mike, and with a disturbingly quiet Rachel. Not that she wasn't at least a little thankful for that. She _thought_ it was going to be a failure as soon as the idea left her teacher's mouth, but when she saw where they were going to stay for the weekend, and felt the tension of everyone's problems between each other in the air, she _knew_ she should have just stayed home.

None of the games Mr. Schue had thought were suitable for a muddy field, so they had to settle for a fire and sitting in dead wood while Rachel and Mercedes tried to monopolize the singing and Artie got into impromptu awkward rapping sessions with Puck. Yeah, she should have just stayed home.

Quinn lasted half an hour before discreetly getting up and going to sit by the river. She watched from there, as an outsider, as everyone sang and laughed away their troubles, and she didn't feel like they missed her or noticed she was gone. But it was okay, she guessed. Because she didn't feel like she belonged there. Everyone was happy and careless, and those who weren't just had frivolous troubles of unrequired love. None of them, she was sure, felt like she did, with a void inside her chest and a constant headache that didn't let her think. Even Sam didn't turn away to look for her, which was pretty telling of their relationship.

Mr. Schuester clapped his hands as everyone got up and the boys went to get everyone's bags from the bus. Quinn sighed and stood up as well when Rachel began to walk her way.

"We've been assigned to share a tent along with Brittany; I request your help with setting it up."

"I don't like camping." The blonde grumbled as she followed Rachel to the pile of tents and bags. "I don't know how to do this."

"No worries, Quinn. I was a girl scout for five years and I'm perfectly capable to make a tent. You just follow my lead as usual and –"

"I thought gays weren't allowed to be scouts." Brittany chirped from behind Rachel.

"Brittany!" Quinn gaped.

"…that's why I never joined."

Quinn saw, mortified, as Rachel stared incredulously at the blonde, beet red and mouth agape.

"Let's just put… let's put this stuff together, right?" Quinn stammered out.

Rachel nodded and they started to make the tent in silence, which soon turned into Rachel giving out orders and Quinn snapping every two sentences. They were the last ones to finish, and by the end of it, Brittany had gone to Santana's tent to never return, and they ended up farthest away from everyone, just at the line of trees.

"Quinn?" Rachel murmured from the quiet of their tent, snuggled in her sleeping bag.

"I'm awake."

"Why did you leave the bonfire today?"

Quinn burrowed herself deeper in her sleeping bag. Why was it always Rachel who noticed those things?

"I didn't feel like singing." She tried to sound nonchalant.

"We're in _Glee Club_."

"So? Not everyone is a swell and singing woodland creature like you." Quinn snapped. Then she cursed herself, closed her eyes tightly and bit her tongue.

"I'm not like that." Rachel said quietly. The blonde sighed.

"I know." Then after a beat. "Sorry."

"You never feel like singing lately." Rachel said hesitantly after a minute of silence.

Quinn's heart sped up.

"How did you… why do you care, Rachel?"

"I'm captain of the Glee Club."

She didn't sound too convinced and Quinn was only mildly disappointed, but she didn't say anything. That's how things worked with Rachel, they never dug too deep.

"Do you think you'll feel like singing tomorrow? We leave in the afternoon and perhaps I could think of –"

"Sh, Rachel." Quinn sat up.

"What?" Quinn put her hand up, palm facing the brunette. "What is it?" Quinn didn't answer and Rachel watched as she slowly unzipped her sleeping bag. "Do you hear something?"

Quinn nodded.

"Stay here." She whispered and got onto her knees.

"Quinn!" Rachel whisper-shouted. "It's probably someone getting up to urinate. Probably Noah."

"I can hear him snoring from across the field." Quinn answered distractedly, putting her shoes.

"You shouldn't go out." Rachel chided, but she was unzipping her sleeping bag, too. She could hear noises and movement from outside. Quinn glared at her.

"Stay here, Berry." Rachel almost recoiled at her arched eyebrow. Almost.

"I'll go with you, Quinn." She protested. The blonde was unzipping the tent door. "But I still think we shouldn't –" Rachel cut herself mid-sentence as Quinn tensed. Her shoulders straightened and she threw her arm back, as if to stop Rachel from moving. Rachel couldn't see what was outside with Quinn's body blocking the opening, but she didn't have to wait too long.

In just a second, there was an animalistic growl and a scream as Quinn's body flung backwards, a hairy mass on top of her. Rachel screamed as she threw herself on top of it, pushing its mouth away from the blonde's neck. The side of her body hit the side of the animal as Quinn screamed Rachel's name and Rachel Quinn's, then cried out for help. Rachel crouched over the blonde as Quinn screamed at her to run. She felt her arm weakly trying to push her and a sharp, excruciating pain on her side. Everything was a blur of screams and snarls and the last thing she heard was a sobbing scream, asking her not to die.


	2. Untitled 1

Chapter One.

Rachel might have thought she was in heaven, if the bright lights were any indication. But then again, she wasn't sure she believed in that, and the steady beeping sound seemed to indicate otherwise. Her eyes were heavy and she couldn't find the strength to open them more. It was as if she couldn't fully wake up from a dream, in which she ran on steady feet across the forest. It was an odd dream for her to have, as most of her dreams consisted of New York streets and a Broadway stage. Perhaps she was dreaming about camping with her fathers or with the girl scouts, which admittedly happened once in a blue moon. That still didn't explain the slight pain on her side or her inability to move, and she started thinking that maybe it was a nightmare after all.

Eyes half open, she tried to sit on her bed, but to no avail. The beeping sound increased its pace, still steady, as she tried to sit again or simply move her head. With a thump, her right cheek hit the hard pillow and a body could be seen across from her. There were machines next to it and a white wall as background. The bed had a railing and the person in it was blonde. Rachel tried to speak, but a strangled noise came out instead. The person (a girl?) was asleep, long hair spread across the pillow. Where were they?

* * *

><p>Rachel blinked and the room was dark, the beeping sound still accompanying her. Her head pounded and her side hurt, and as she looked to her right again, she could make out a silhouette on a bed. Closing her eyes, Rachel tried to figure out what was the last thing she remembered.<p>

_She'd had breakfast with her dad before he took her to school. She met the Glee Club at the school's parking lot and tried to avoid Finn as they waited for everyone to arrive. They got on the bus and she sat with Mercedes for the ride to the outskirts of Lima where they were staying for the night. Mr. Schuester had had another of his ridiculous ideas for them to bond, since everything seemed so tense lately. But the weather was awful so they had to settle for a bonfire and singing, which admittedly could have been done any school day just the same. Quinn had walked away soon after and Rachel had fought the urge to go to her all night. Half her mind was on singing and the other half stole glances at the blonde, who sat by the river sulking the night off. Mr. Schuester had assigned her a tent with Quinn and Brittany, but they ended up alone because Britt couldn't put up with their bickering. Rachel fought the urge to care for the blonde all night, but that had stopped sleep from coming and soon she found herself trying to make Quinn open up to her, which of course ended up with the blonde snapping at her. Then Quinn had heard a noise… Rachel tried to make her stay… but Quinn got up… she'd opened the tent… she screamed… there was an animal… Rachel tried to protect Quinn and Quinn tried to protect her… she'd felt pain… there were screams… Rachel screamed for help… everything shook… everything was shaking… everything hurt…_

Rachel panted as a soothing feeling invaded her; someone was next to her gripping her shoulders.

"Ms. Berry, please try to calm down. Can you hear me? You're not in danger, the pain is leaving. Can you feel it? Can you hear me?"

"Quinn?" She asked. She knew that voice didn't belong to her, but perhaps the woman knew where she was.

"Ms. Fabray is right next to you, on the other bed. Do you want to see?" The voice was soothing and Rachel nodded. One of the woman's hands stayed reassuringly on her forearm as she walked away from the bed, and soon a dull light illuminated the room.

"Is she okay?"

"She's medicated and asleep. You're the first of you two to wake up. Do you feel any pain?"

"Just my head." Rachel tried to lift her arm, but everything felt so _heavy_. "What happened to us? We… there was an animal…"

"You were attacked, but don't worry, you're gonna be fine. Your friend here lost a little blood, but you seemed to have protected her very well." There was a hint of a smile on the nurse's face, her voice was quiet and very soothing and Rachel found herself being lulled to sleep by it.

The pain in her head diminished and her vision got blurry.

"Is she going to be okay?" She managed to whisper, but her mind didn't stay awake to hear the answer.

* * *

><p>The next time she woke up, she heard noises before opening her eyes. A man was murmuring and a woman was murmuring back. Her eyes squinted against the bright light and she closed them with a groan.<p>

"Rachel?" Someone whispered at her side.

"Quinn?" She whispered back.

"No, Baby, it's Dad. Are you okay? Can you open your eyes?"

She shook her head.

"Too bright." She murmured.

"Honey, close the curtains! Rachel, Quinn's asleep in the next bed, she's okay. Can you open your eyes now?"

Rachel obliged, the sight of her Dad greeted her and she smiled.

"Do I look horrible?" She murmured.

"No, Baby, you're perfect." Her Dad cupped her cheek and she heard the tears in his voice, filled with relief.

"Water?" Her Dad nodded and stood up. Rachel watched him heading for the door after stopping to share an embrace with her Daddy. She smiled at him before noticing the other woman in the room. "Ms. Fabray?" As soon as their gazes met, Rachel felt tears swell up in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, she heard a noise and wanted to go out of the tent, but we didn't…. I never saw… I tried to shield her…"

"Rachel, it's okay." Judy released her daughter's hand and stood up by Rachel's bed. "We already had this talk with Quinn, neither of you –"

"She woke up?" Rachel tried to sit up abruptly and her head spun, making her collapse to the bed again with a groan.

"Sit up slowly, Honey!" Her Daddy ran to her bed dramatically and helped her sit up, fluffing the pillows behind her back when she grimaced at the pain on her ribs.

"Yes, she woke up." Judy smiled, amused. "You seem to take turns to wake up and say the same things."

"So she's okay?" The hope and relief in Rachel's tone as well as her face made Ms. Fabray cup her cheek, endeared at the concern for her daughter.

"Yes, she's okay. And it's not your fault or hers that you got hurt. It was a wild animal, something beyond your control. What matters is that you're both okay and that you fought for each other."

Rachel nodded distractedly as she drank in Quinn's image. She seemed peaceful in her slumber, not a single crease in her brow, and her neck and shoulder were wrapped in bandages. She quivered as she remembered the mass of hair latched to that place.

"So what was it?" She whispered as her eyes moved up and down Quinn's body, as if looking for any other damage.

"What, honey?" Her Dad placed the cup in her hand, steading it with both of his as Rachel took it to her mouth.

"That thing… that attacked us. It was a beast!"

"The authorities are still searching the area, but they're not sure. The wounds don't match any particular –"

"Honey, she doesn't need to know so many daunting details." Rachel's Daddy reprimanded. "They're searching, Baby, but don't you worry about anything. It's over now and you don't have to worry about it anymore."

Rachel watched the concern latched in her father's eyes and slipped her hand under the blankets, fingers grazing the bandage. She tried to smile at them to ease their anxiety, but Quinn groaned in her bed and Rachel's expression turned into alarm, one leg already off the bed.

"Stay on bed, Rachel. She's just waking up." Her Daddy instructed.

Rachel sat motionless as Quinn shifted slightly, her hand moving to cup her shoulder and eyes opening. She could hear her heartbeat on the monitors speeding up as background sound as their eyes met.

"Rachel." Quinn whispered, a thousand different emotions crossing her eyes, settling on relief.

"I'm okay. Are you okay?"

"I'm okay."

"Okay."

There was tension-filled silence for a few seconds before Hiram spoke up.

"You're okay. So you believe us now?" He smiled.

Rachel nodded as she watched Quinn close her eyes slowly and lower her hand to rest on her stomach. She knew right away.

"How much longer do we have to stay here?" She asked softly as Quinn clutched the sheets.

"Just one or two more days." Judy smiled. "Just to make sure, the doctors said."

Rachel leaned back onto her bed, biting her lip.

"We'll be good to go tomorrow, I'm sure." She said to the air, but she knew the right person understood.

* * *

><p>Quinn was on painkillers and wrapped in bandages for two weeks. Just looking at the wound was painful and reminded her of screams and growls and made her feel bile rise to her throat. She took to wearing scarfs after the bandages were gone because her wound was too ugly to look at. People at school still gave her looks and lingering glances, and she could see they were morbidly eager to see how badly her neck and shoulder had turned out. She was lucky, just a few centimeters in the wrong way and her jugular would be gone and she would've bled to death. Rachel had saved her.<p>

Every day for the first week she approached Rachel at her locker and they would both ask the other if they were okay. The second week, they took to ask each other on Glee. By the third week, Rachel just smiled at her in the hallway and Quinn was good to go. Somewhere inside her she still wanted to talk to Rachel every day and _make sure_ she wasn't in pain, because her wound still hurt, but that part burrowed itself deeper inside every day.

She watched Finn unnervingly for the first week and a half, carrying Rachel's books around, having lunch with her and undoubtedly trying to woo her and win her back. Rachel exploded on a Glee meeting, asking him "as politely as she could", to leave her the hell alone. Mercedes had taken book carrying duty after that, and strangely, Quinn couldn't have been more relieved.

Sam had carried her books for the first week at school, and that was it. There was no doubt between them that what they had was purely for popularity's sake, and that was a good arrangement between them. They felt secure and everyone else saw them happy. He was a really good guy, admittedly not boyfriend material for her, but they were friends. They walked around school hand in hand, watched movies at home and occasionally made out, when they were bored. He'd been concerned for her for the first week, but it eventually wore out when he realized she was okay.

It worked like that with everyone, even her mother, to some extent. She made sure Quinn took her medication every day for the first two weeks and made sure the wound was being taken care of. But everything went back to normal three weeks later. There was some residual pain and she felt self-conscious about the scar, and her Rachel thoughts went back to the normal amount. That was not to say they were few or far in between.

* * *

><p>Rachel felt a little under the weather after the third week. Her wound still hurt and she couldn't practice ballet yet, and so she had taken to use the elliptical more in the month that followed the attack, but the last week had been odd. She'd had headaches in the morning and the afternoon, and maybe a little bit of fever on Thursday. She'd forgo the elliptical thinking perhaps physical work was affecting the wound and she didn't want it to get infected, but she still felt tired on Friday. She hadn't told her dads because she didn't want to worry them, but she swore that if she felt ill on Monday, she would go to the hospital. Thankfully, she had two weeks of winter to rest and enjoy the holidays, and to start school good as new.<p>

Kurt had set up a "date" for her and Mercedes to go to his house and spend some time with him now they weren't occupied with rivalry competition, and she'd told her dads she was going. Now she wasn't so sure. Rachel woke up with a headache and chills. Her dads were at work and wouldn't be home until late afternoon, so she thought she should stay at home and wait for them to call the doctor.

When she took off her pajama shirt to take a shower and posed in front of her mirror as usual to inspect her scar, Rachel thought going to the hospital was a better choice. The wound, these days pinkish and smooth, was red, a little purple and swollen. The fever might be because it was infected and Rachel panicked. The shower forgotten, she ate a quick lunch and wrapped herself in a sweater, scarf and coat to go take the bus.

The cold wind to her face made her change her mind as soon as she got out. It felt exceptionally good on her feverish skin and so she opted for a walk. The exercise felt great after a week of inaction and her step fastened by the block, and soon she was jogging with the cold wind hitting her face and she could feel every muscle in her body working and warming and taking her faster and faster. There was no direction better than the one her body wanted to take her, and despite of still feeling warm all over, the fever didn't seem to make her sick. Instead, the heat made her fun faster, her feet hitting the pavement harder, her breathing not labored at all. Her wound was pulsating, but Rachel had long forgotten where she was going, or why she got out of the house at all. Running had never felt so good, the cold air and her hot body complementing each other and eliminating all sense of discomfort.

The sun was setting after a while, and that made her think perhaps she ought to go home, or to Kurt's, or the hospital, but nothing around her seemed familiar. She couldn't stop her legs from running and she had no idea where she was, but something in her brain didn't allow her to panic. Everything felt too good, her lungs weren't working hard at all, and her legs kept taking her faster. The night was coming and the Sun was hiding and the Moon… soon the Moon would come and that made her heart beat faster. Rachel smiled as the line of trees filled her visual and the laughter bubbled inside her chest, past her throat into the air. She felt so, so warm. Every muscle was beating and her wound pulsed in synch with her heartbeat and the Moon… the Moon was coming and she couldn't be happier. Rachel laughed out loud as she ran through the trees, her chest reverberating and her body heating. She took off her scarf, seeing it fly behind her into the wind. Her coat soon hit the floor, followed by one of her sneakers sliding off her foot, then her sweater, then her other sneaker. She couldn't stop running and laughing even as her clothes went missing, and the Moon… Rachel looked up as she ran, the Moon full and beautiful on top of her face as she fell to the ground, her body shaking, her laugher turned into a groan, into a scream… everything went black.

Far away, as a background, Rachel heard a scream… turn into a howl.


	3. Untitled 2

Chapter Two.

Quinn woke up with a groan, her whole body aching as she tried to sit up. With a thud, the right side of her body hit the hard ground and her hand flung to clutch at her shoulder, but the expected additional pain never showed. At first, the sight of her healed wound stopped her from realizing where she was, or that she had no clothes on. For a blinding, terrifying moment, she expected to see Rachel, bleeding and at what seemed like second of dying, being carried away by the paramedics. But she was alone, naked, laying on the same spot on the ground. She panicked for a second, thinking perhaps she was still there, perhaps no one had worried about her and they had thought her dead, leaving her worthless body and worrying about saving Rachel.

She pushed the plaguing dark thoughts away, only to be left with utter astonishment and panic. What happened? What had she done? Looking around, she saw the river in the distance and stood up on shaky legs, both from her muscular pain and the cold. It wasn't snowing yet, but the ground was wet from the morning dew and Quinn saw her bare feet covered in mud, as well as her hands and most of her legs. The cold water made her body feel covered by tiny needles and she didn't even last a minute in it, but it was enough to clean herself.

She couldn't remember how she ended up in the woods… she didn't even remember waking up the day before. In the distance, Quinn saw something red and walked as fast as her shaking body allowed her. Her coat lay there shadowed by a tree, and she bent down, steadying herself on the log to pick it up, wrapping herself inside it and buttoning it up with trembling fingers. She walked around to try and find more of her clothes, but to no avail. Had she had an accident and lost part of her memory? She didn't know what kind of accident she could have suffered in the middle of the woods. She sure hadn't been attacked again, and the tiny road almost a mile away didn't have space for two cars to drive, much less crash fatally. Maybe she'd been… assaulted? Her body _did _hurt, but there seemed to be no actual damage. Even… her wound seemed months healed, instead of weeks. Her heartbeat hadn't slowed the slightest since she'd woken up, and she had to sit on the dead pieces of wood they'd used as benches just a month ago. She had to go home. There were no signs of anybody else in there. She remembered there was some house or cabin a couple of miles away, just at the end of the road. A farm where a man named Mr. Linton lived, he had sheep and chickens and she remembered people bought fresh eggs from him. It would take her a couple of hours to get there on her condition, but perhaps she could borrow some shoes and money to take the bus.

* * *

><p>Rachel got home in the afternoon, still shaking from the cold and exhaustion and fear, to a dark and empty house. Her fathers were still at work and she was both relieved and terrified by that notion. Since she had woken up, naked in the middle of the woods, everything seemed surreal. She felt she had woken up from a strange dream into another dimension. She had no idea where she was, there was no path, no road to indicate where she stood until she found the river. She'd launched herself in it to wash away the mud that covered her body and stayed under water for as long as she could. She regretted it as soon as the cold air hit her cold, wet, naked body, oddly enough feeling more exposed now that she was clean. But then, oh surprise! She saw her shirt lying on the ground a few feet away and walked as fast as she could to get it, tripping from her trembling muscles and steadying herself against a tree before almost falling to the ground. She walked in an almost straight line through the trees and found most of her clothes, even her shoes.<p>

Now at home, Rachel still didn't remember anything from the day before, her entire body hurt and her heartbeat and trembling hands were impossible to soothe. Gripping the railing tightly with both hands, she slowly made her way upstairs and walked to her bathroom, opening the tab before taking off her clothes. As a ritual for the past month, she regarded herself in front of the mirror before gasping and clutching at the sink. Her wound, previously pinkish and flat, was healed to almost the color of her skin, the dents from her attacker's teeth sticking out, no more red but almost white, lighter than her skin tone. What had happened to her? There was just no way than in two days her scar had healed completely. Yet, here she stood… lowering herself slowly, Rachel sighed as her muscles relaxed under the warm water and her heartbeat slowed steadily.

By the time her fathers got home, Rachel's body was soothed and her hands could hold her mug of tea steady.

"Hi, Honey." Her Daddy greeted. "Did you have fun at Kurt's?"

Rachel closed her eyes and sighed in relief. They didn't have a clue; they weren't worried about her at all.

"A blast." She smiled before sipping her tea.

"Are you feeling alright?" Rachel's Dad, Hiram, stood close to her and touched her forehead. She leaned away slightly.

"Yes Dad. I just have a small headache." She stood up. "I'm actually quite tired, so if you don't mind, I think I'll go to bed early."

She had reached the stairs when her father Leroy peered at her from the kitchen's doorframe.

"What about food?"

"Kurt's been taking an on-line Italian food course, so I'm stuffed until tomorrow." She lied.

"That's wonderful! Do tell him to cook for us here sometime. Lord knows we only know how to burn the kitchen."

"I'll tell him. Good night, Daddy."

"Goodnight, Baby Girl!" He sing-songed from the kitchen.

Rachel didn't sleep much that night, terrified of waking up in the woods the next morning, without memory of the past day. She knew she sleep-walked as a child, but seriously?

Twelve blocks away, curled up completely under a blanket on her bed, Quinn had similar thoughts and fears running through her mind. Was she going insane?

* * *

><p>It took until the last night of Winter Break before Quinn could go to sleep without fear for the next morning. Daytime fear still haunted her, though. She couldn't just let it go, couldn't shake the fear that maybe… Quinn knew she was sad, unhealthily sad. She'd never been a particularly happy girl, but it got worse after Beth. Her mother had asked her a thousand times, and every time, she lied. Every time, her mother accepted it, because it was all they knew. Quinn didn't hold it against her. So she said she was <em>fine; <em>said it to her mother, to people at school… to herself. But she knew it was all a lie. An outrageous one. Often, she'd spend her day looking blankly through her bedroom window for hours, her mind numb. She had dark thoughts, sad thoughts; she felt lonely, unlovable, but she had never been afraid. Deep down, even if she never cared to admit it, Quinn was depressed. She was sad, and sometimes scared, but never afraid. She'd lost a whole day in her life! What if… what if her mind had screwed up completely? What if she had some kind illness? Multiple personality? A tumor? She daren't tell her mother about it. Quinn's grandmother had committed suicide and her mother took Prozac. She would want to send Quinn to a psychiatrist, or to a hospital… Quinn couldn't, wouldn't tell anyone. She'd deal with it herself, alone, like she had done with everything else her entire life.

* * *

><p>Rachel went to bed fully prepared for school the next day. Her Winter Break had been productive and relaxing, for the most part. She'd spent her time with Kurt and Mercedes, sometimes with Blaine tagging along. She'd exercised on the elliptical every morning, did vocal exercises every afternoon, uploaded My Space videos every three days, and tried baking several vegan recipes, succeeding almost every time. And between those things, Rachel took it upon herself as a duty to do some research on what had happened that day, two weeks ago. Mostly came out futile. As far as she could remember, decipher and judge from her personality, she hadn't done drugs or drank enough alcohol to swallow an entire day, and she hadn't suffered any trauma… that she remembered. It was too late for trauma being because of the attack on the camping trip, and she still had nightmares over that, anyway. Rachel took a method from one of her favorites, non-musical movies, and had kept a diary of her day to day life. So far, there wasn't a minute of these past few weeks she'd forgotten.<p>

The first week of school rushed in front of her eyes, what with turning in papers, club meetings and long discussions about Glee Club with Mr. Schuester. He'd taken it a little easier with her after the attack, she assumed he felt partially guilty for taking them there, and she couldn't deny she would feel the same way. So he'd been more open to her suggestions, and sometimes she felt he was the same man he'd been when he'd first taken over the club. Rachel wasn't sure what had changed in his life to make him more selfish and more of a lousy teacher than he already was, perhaps the end of his marriage or middle-age crisis, but whatever the reason, she was glad at least some of his old personality was back. So she had to admit that now that she got along better with everyone, Glee was starting to become more comfortable and had taken even a little bit more of her time.

That's why, when the fourth week started, Rachel didn't give much thought to her morning and afternoon headaches, or her more-than-usual exhaustion. She chalked it up to the being back school madness and starting ballet again, and wrote down on her diary about needing to take some vitamins.

* * *

><p>Quinn didn't give a single thought to her fever when she woke up on Tuesday morning; it wasn't like Coach Sylvester would care. She did her usual morning routine, got into her winter Cheerios uniform and packed an extra bag of clothes, because there was no way she was staying on a skirt after practice. Getting out of the house to open the garage door to get her car, something stopped her mid-step. There was just <em>something<em> in the air, the way it felt against her skin and cleared her head, that made her want to walk. She didn't care if it was a ridiculous amount to walk, more so with the weather, she just couldn't help herself. Her feet took her forward, the houses and shops and parks became blurry as her body took her where she just _knew _she had to be. There was something, far away, that tugged her forward by the shoulders; something that felt promising and blissful, and there was nothing that Quinn wanted more than to feel like that. In the back of her head, she knew there was something odd about it, something eerily familiar, but she couldn't stop herself from walking miles and miles without feeling tired, feeling happier as she approached whatever it was that was waiting ahead. The Sun was high in the sky as she walked, then lower, setting. Quinn smiled, in spite of not knowing where she was and having no control over her body, when she realized it was about to get dark. It didn't register that she'd been walking all day, that she'd missed school, Cheerios and Glee, because the Moon was coming, and there was nothing more important or better than that.

She began running as that thought set, grinning when trees filled her vision, laughing as she began running through them. Her backpack hit the ground, and next were her sneakers. Quinn's heart began pounding faster as she realized, in a panic that lasted less than a second, that something was going on. She was taking her clothes and running through the woods, and she couldn't stop her body, couldn't get a hold of it. But after that fleeting second, laughter bubbled inside her chest, the Moon bathing the sky and washing over her face as she fell to the ground. She heard a distant scream, chilling her bones for less than a second as it reminded her of something, now hidden in the back of her mind. Her body shook and she arched up, a scream filling the air and running through her entire body before turning into a growl, and then everything went black.

* * *

><p>Rachel walked the halls aimlessly on Thursday morning. She had missed two days of school, again with no memory of an entire day. Well, almost. She remembered waking up in the morning with high temperature and forgoing the elliptical, taking a shower instead. She remembered changing and getting out of the house, then everything became blurry. There were streets and shops and houses and she was almost sure she ran. Then she remembered being a heap on the floor… someone was screaming inside her mind, or maybe it was her. Then she woke up in the woods, naked, with no idea how she got there<em>. Again.<em> One time was disturbing enough, but to happen twice? That was no coincidence. Was she dying? Was something happening with her brain? Rachel couldn't shake those thoughts away, everything around her was a mass of color and sound as she walked to Glee and sat down in the back row, resting her head on her hands and rubbing her temples with her thumbs. That's why she didn't hear Brittany ask Quinn why she missed two days of school. Or perhaps it was Mercedes, who entered the Choir room in that same moment and hollowed.

"Berry!"

Rachel jumped in her chair and clutched at the material of her sweater in her chest.

"Lord, Mercedes, must you be so loud?"

"Must you use that language?" She mocked as she drooped down on a chair next to her own. "Where were you on Tuesday?" She said next, in a conspiratorial whisper, like they were sharing a dirty secret.

Rachel paled.

"I was… at my house. I didn't –didn't feel very well."

"Girl, please. One of your dads call me to see if you were with me because it was late and you hadn't called, so I told them you fell asleep and to just let you crash at mine's. You'll thank me for that later, after you tell me where you were." Mercedes grinned, ignoring Mr. Schuester in the front, calling for everyone to be silent.

Rachel listened to her containing a groan, thinking why it never occurred to her that her dads weren't worried when she didn't get home for a whole day. Excuses eluded her, so she stayed silent, clutching her head and hoping Mercedes would let it go.

"Please tell me you weren't at Puck's. I know for a fact you didn't see Finn, 'cause my boy Kurt told me you didn't stop by."

_Of course_ she wouldn't.

After a moment of silence filled with Mr. Schuester speaking to himself, she prodded again.

"I'm only asking out of concern for you, 'kay? I wouldn't want to be under Zizes' fists. Just ask Santana."

"I went to a friends' house, Mercedes." Rachel whispered, trying to keep the irritation from seeping in. She was so tired.

"A friend? What other friends do you have apart from us gleeks? No offence."

"From ballet… a friend from my ballet class. I really didn't feel good, Mercedes, so I fell asleep on her house and then slept all Wednesday at home."

"So I'm supposed to buy my own excuse? Na-uh, if you wanna lie, at least –"

"Oh my God, please stop talking!" Rachel snapped.

Everyone turned around to look at them in disbelief, appalled at Rachel's unusual harshness. Finn was gaping at them and Santana had a deep smirk on her face.

"Oh, I –I'm so sorry, Mercedes. I'm sorry." Rachel gushed, almost clutching at her arm. Mercedes was just as flabbergasted as everyone else. "I'm just… not feeling very well."

Using Mercedes' arm for support, Rachel got up and swung her bag pack over her shoulder.

"I'm sorry." She said again. "I'm going to go home, Mr. Schuester. I hope you can continue the meeting without me. I realize it's completely unprofessional for me to go, but I really don't feel well."

"It's okay, Rachel. Go home and rest." Mr. Schue smiled and rested a hand on her shoulder as she walked by past him. "I'm sure we can survive one meeting without you."

If it weren't for his warm tone and the comforting touch of his hand, Rachel would have taken that comment the wrong way, but she just walked slowly out of the room.

"Yeah, I'm gonna go, too." Quinn said softly, lifting her head from Sam's shoulder and squeezing his hand after grabbing her backpack. "I'm not feeling well either."

"You take some rest too, Quinn." The teacher frowned. "Maybe there's a virus going on."

Rachel felt a hand on her shoulder was she walked down the hallway.

"Hey Rachel." Quinn said softly beside her.

"What are you doing here, Quinn? Did I forget something?"

"No, I'm just… I have a little cold, so I'm going home too. Wouldn't be able to sing anyway." She shrugged. Rachel merely nodded. "Do you need a ride?"

"I was going to take the bus…" She trailed off, seeing Quinn bite her lip out of the corner of her eye. "Don't bother if you're not feeling too well."

"No, I don't mind." Quinn shook her head. _Ugh, eager much?_ "It's just a cold."

Quinn fought the urge to speak the whole ride. Rachel just sat in the passenger seat, leaning her head against it with her eyes closed, a tired expression on her face. She had bags under her eyes and her hands were clasped in her lap. Quinn thought she seemed to keep them from trembling. In reality, Rachel wasn't a far cry from how _she_ looked right now. For a moment, Quinn had the ridiculous urge to say "Hey Rach… woke up naked in the woods these days?" But she bit her lips between her teeth; it was just a coincidence they were sick at the same time. She pulled over at the front of the brunette's house and looked at her. Rachel had fallen asleep, and Quinn just… stared at her for a moment, not really realizing what she was doing. She shook her head when her stomach started fluttering and rested a hand on her shoulder.

"Rachel? Wake up, you're home." The brunette's eyebrows furrowed and she blinked her eyes open. Quinn smiled softly at her. "You're home."

Rachel nodded sleepily and Quinn reached to grab her bag from the back seat with her free hand.

"Here. Get some rest."

"Thank you for bringing me home, Quinn." Rachel smiled tiredly, resting her hand atop of the pale one on her shoulder. "You get some rest too, okay?"

Quinn nodded as Rachel got out of her car and closed the door, whispering _"okay"_ to the brunette's retreating back.

When she got home, she only slipped off her shoes before climbing in bed under the covers, tears immediately running down her cheeks. She didn't know if she cried because, in her own troubled way, she was burying her feelings deep inside a countless time again, or if it was just the usual for these past days. Because Quinn was sure now, without a doubt, that she was losing her mind.


	4. Untitled 3

_Chapter three._

Rachel wouldn't die, at least not without a fight. After sleeping an entire day, she realized she couldn't let herself lose her mind more than she was already. So she made a list, and a chart, and made time in her week for investigation. She didn't want to disturb her fathers, alarm them in any way unless it was necessary, like brain surgery. She'd seen how they were after the attack, so devastated and worried… Her first thought was that maybe these blackouts were a side effect of that event. Perhaps what bit her was poisonous or maybe what she suffered was a side effect of her trauma. But some things didn't add up. Like the fact that Quinn was also attacked but didn't wake up naked in the fucking woods! After a week of searching, it became incredibly frustrating, because this sort of thing didn't happen. Rachel knew it was weird, unusual.

She tried not to let it get to her, but she was more irritable lately. She had a hard time containing her temper, which hadn't happened before. In the two weeks after the incident at Glee with Mercedes, Rachel had snapped at a student in the hall, at Finn and even a teacher! She'd always had a strong personality, an uneven temper, but never before had she been unable to control it like that. She even got out of a slushie by growling at a jock!

The more she tried to find another explanation that wasn't a brain tumor or a personality disorder, the harder it was. She didn't want to end up with those conclusions because, well… they were unbelievably scary and made her cry herself to sleep at night. She thought maybe… if she didn't think about it… and tried to exercise more… eat healthier… take vitamins… sleep more… go out with her friends and laugh... And the more she thought about it, the more it sounded like something people would do if they found out they had cancer. Rachel sobbed when she thought about it.

* * *

><p>The first thing she did every morning was turn on the computer and check the date, almost crying in relief when she hadn't missed a day.<p>

Quinn kept having nightmares. Out were the ones where kids mocked her or baby soft skin surrounded her. She kept dreaming about Rachel's screams, waking up sobbing. She dreamt about running fast, a blur of green around her; about falling to the ground and running with her arms and legs. She always woke up sweating, always cried in relief when she realized she was in her bed.

She had a hard time concentrating at school. She was more irritable and hungrier and sadder than before. Every night she went to sleep dreading waking up in the dirt, afraid of waking up in an asylum, or not waking up at all.

Three weeks had passed and Quinn was alarmed when, on Thursday, she woke up with a headache for the fourth time that week. Instead of concentrating on the pyramid, she had to concentrate on not to snap at Sue, who was unreasonably yelling at them without a purpose. After morning practice and a shower, Quinn got out to the hallway only to encounter a scene she never imagined before, and could have never guessed her reaction to it.

There was a half-moon of people surrounding Rachel and Azimio, watching transfixed or just thirsty for blood, as he grabbed at Rachel by her arms, an empty cup of Big Gulp on the floor covered with slushie.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Quinn yelled as she marched forward, while Rachel tried to kick the jock and screamed at his face, and he screamed back.

"Just calm down, you crazy loser!"

"How dare you come to me with that cup, you regressed Neanderthal!"

"Put her down right now, or I swear to you!" Quinn screamed at the top of her lungs as she almost reached the scene.

A lot of people turned to quickly walk away, and some stood there holding their breath, and Azimio just held Rachel tighter by her upper arms as he turned around to look at Quinn.

"I ain't dropping her; the crazy bitch just punched me! She's trying to kick me!"

"You were going to throw that to my face, I'm done putting up with you!" Rachel screamed fiercely right in his face.

Quinn reached them just in that moment, grabbing the jock by the neck and burying her nails in, making him scream as she drag him backwards and slammed him into a locker with the sheer force of her pull.

Rachel fell to the ground on her behind, and the force of the impact stunned her into silence. She didn't mean… it all got out of her control as soon as she saw him coming to her with the slushie. Rage got the upper hand and soon her fist was connecting with the underside of his jaw, sending the cup to the floor. Now she watched, astounded, as Quinn screamed into Azimio's face while keeping him in place with the collar of his jacket gripped in her hands.

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size? How can you grab a girl like that? Haven't you seen her? She's tiny! You could have broken her! If you ever touch her again, I swear to God –"

Rachel quickly got up and rested her hands on Quinn's, careful to hit Azimio's face with her elbow.

"Quinn! Stop, I'm okay." She tugged at her hands to pry them away from the jacket and Quinn looked at her, angry for a second and then baffled, like she had let her emotions take over, just like Rachel did.

"Are you okay?" She asked softly, and the concern written on her face pulled right at Rachel's chest.

"Thanks to you, yeah." She managed to say before their science teacher walked out of a classroom screaming at them to take them to the principal's office.

"Don't thank me; you were a fierce little thing." Quinn whispered softly as they walked behind Mr. Martinez.

"I didn't mean to snap at him." Rachel smiled tiredly.

"I know, me neither. It just made me so angry, I couldn't stop myself."

"Yeah. But thanks." Rachel said bashfully, brushing the back of her hand over Quinn's.

"I'm just so tired." Quinn whispered to herself, pressing her palm to her forehead, before entering Figgins' office.

The side of Rachel's mouth twitched, noticing the bags under Quinn's eyes matched her own. She was incredibly tired, too, like she needed to sleep for a whole day.

Figgins, being the inept principal he was known to be, let them go quickly with a warning. Rachel was glad this time, because she didn't think she could take another second of his incompetence. She wished she could stop worrying and get some rest, but it seemed impossible. She just couldn't let go of the fear of waking up every morning, one that was bound to make her jittery and tense the entire day.

Later at home, as she wrote down the incident in her day-to-day diary, something seemed uncannily familiar, and so she flipped back the pages to the days before her second blackout. These… headaches had happened to her last month, too, and if there was something she wasn't sure she believed anymore, at least when it came to this, it was coincidences. She thought the only symptom she had were the blackouts, but what if she had _other symptoms _and the blackout was the outcome? She flipped to the very last page of her notebook and wrote down **symptoms** in the top left corner. She felt tired and had headaches, but those only seemed to come a week before last month, so what if right now… any given day… today, or tomorrow… She tried to focus. She was moody and irritable… hungrier? She wrote it down with a question mark, because she wasn't sure if it had anything to do.

Her heart beating madly, Rachel decided to take precautions. If this was bound to happen again, any time soon, she had to be prepared. She would always leave with a change of clothes, extra money, and soap. Dirt was very disgusting to walk around covered in. She set everything at the foot of her bed later that night before attempting to sleep, but she couldn't stop thinking about today's events. Quinn had stood up for her. It kind of made her stomach churn, although she had no idea why. They were both so… out of control. Quinn seemed confused when she pulled her away from Azimio, and she had to admit, she also looked really tired. Rachel remembered her having a cold, so maybe she hadn't fully recuperated from that. With a sigh, she rolled over and tried to force her mind to sleep. She wished her situation was a problem of just a simple cold.

* * *

><p>"<em>Rachel… wake up… you're home… you're home…" <em>

Rachel opened her eyes, immediately squinting at the sun that slipped through the trees. Tears fell slowly from the corner of her eyes to her temples and she turned to her side, groaning in pain before it turned into a helpless sob. She cried until she was out of tears, partially because it had happened again, but the other half wasn't because her mind was blank, but because this time, she did remembered things.

She should have known, as soon as this happened more than once, that whatever it was, it wasn't a common disease. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew people with brain tumors unlikely did _this_, walk or run an entire day an impossible amount of distance for a human being, take their clothes off and spread them around the trees and wake up in the dirt. This… this was something else. Rachel had never been one interested or intrigued by the supernatural, musical and romance were more her kind of choice, but as she found her backpack after an hour of walking aimlessly through the woods, she was determined to do her research as soon as she walked a few miles to the bus stop and got home.

The memory wasn't clear, _per se_, but she remembered more, so much more than the two previous times; bits and pieces of the day _and _the night, and those were the ones that chilled her bones. From the day, she remembered walking, feeling empowered, being tugged at the waist by something far away. She remembered feeling giddy while she ran, and something about the afternoon made her happy. Then, she ran, and ran, and a blur of green passed through her mind until _something_ happened. Something painful. The next memories were different, although she didn't exactly know why. She ran and her breathing was jagged, but her head hurt just trying to remember. As she looked out of the window at the passing houses and trees, Rachel remembered making noises no human ever could; a baritone cry that didn't sound human at all. The sounds echoed in her head, and she couldn't remember if it was _she_ that was making them, or if there was _something else_ out there.

* * *

><p>Quinn contemplated throwing herself on the river and drown. She contemplated getting home and taking all of her mom's Prozac along with one of her father's long forgotten bottles of whisky stored in his closed and dusty study. Maybe, maybe talk with her mother about what was going on, or Ms. Pillsbury, or just go to the hospital. She contemplated all that, but in the end, she knew she was going to swallow it down and keep silent, even if it was eating her inside.<p>

Her muscles ached as she walked, barefoot, along the road, seeing the bus pass by her. She groaned as she realized she would probably have to wait another half hour for the next one. Memories assaulted her, but they weren't clear. Just blurs of colors and sounds that made her shiver as she tried to shove them to the back of her mind, keep them there so she could forget them.

She got home after noon and took a quick shower. Facing Ms. Sylvester was something she knew she had to do, even if she dreaded it. It was the third month she missed two days of school and, consequentially, Cheerios practice. At least she would go to this afternoon's practice and make up some excuse about family trouble. She was sure she looked like a mess anyway, so the coach would be able to at least see the stress on her face.

As she walked into McKinley and headed to the teacher's lunch room, where she knew her coach would be, she tried to control her shallow breathing and her trembling hands, which were post-blackout symptoms. She was surprised to find Rachel standing next to Mr. Schuester's chair, wearing jeans and a hoodie and with damp hair. She looked exceptionally normal but so pretty, and she caught a portion of their conversation where Rachel apologized for missing yesterday's Glee rehearsal.

Ms. Sylvester lifted her head from the monthly cheerleader magazine with her face on the cover just enough to get a glimpse of her face before returning to her reading. If she wasn't going to say anything…

"Ms. Sylvester, I'm sorry for missing practice yesterday and tomorrow morning. I had some trouble at home but I swear to you, it won't happen again. I promise to give my best at practice this afternoon and hopefully –"

"I know it won't happen again, Q." She stated without looking at her.

"It won't, coach. I promise that –"

"You're off." Ms. Sylvester cut in.

"I'm… what?"

"You're off the squad, Fabray. I can handle neither your irresponsibility nor the excruciating sound of your stretch marks rubbing together. Turn in –"

"Coach, please! I won't –"

"_Turn in_ your uniform on Monday; I expect it to be dry-cleaned and breast-milk free. No more of this now, go."

Quinn stood there, gaping, as her coach –former coach, turned back to her magazine as if she hadn't just thrown her head cheerleader off the squad.

"Quinn…" Rachel said softly, standing a few feet away from her, stretching her arm out.

Humiliation overwhelmed her when she realized she had watched the whole thing and tears threatened to escape.

"I'm sorry I missed practice yesterday too, Mr. Schue." She said softly as she walked by his table with her head hung and her hair covering her red, tear-tracked face.

She made it to the parking lot before bursting into tears at the hood of her car, covering her face with her hands. Hadn't she had enough? Couldn't she have a quiet, normal year after everything that happened last year? Now she was dying or going crazy and she had to be kicked out of the squad, too? Warm arms wrapped around her and she felt a familiar scent wash over her as she hid her face in Rachel's chest. She cried and sobbed until she felt the brunette palming the pockets of her cheerios jacket and stealing her keys. Rachel maneuvered while holding Quinn with her left arm and opened the driver's door, pushing the blonde inside and sitting sideways on her lap. Quinn hid her face in the crook of Rachel's neck, too exhausted and helpless to care, and cried all of her tears as the brunette stroked her hair, shushing her softly next to her ear.

"I'm s-sorry, Rachel."

"Don't apologize, Quinn, please. Ms. Sylvester was very cold and cruel, and what she did was very much uncalled for."

"Yeah." The blonde sighed, pulling her head back and resting against the seat. She whipped her cheek with her left hand and felt Rachel cup her right cheek, whipping her tears as well. Quinn closed her eyes. "I'm probably overreacting, but I'm just so tired and confused and…" Her whisper trailed off. She had to stop talking before she revealed too much.

"Are you not sleeping well?" Rachel asked softly as her thumb traced the dark bag under her right eye.

Now that she was calmer, Quinn became aware of their closeness and intimate connection. It was comfortable, so comfortable her heart ached, and so she straightened in her seat, hoping Rachel would get the hint and get off of her. The brunette licked her bottom lip and stretched her hands back to the passenger seat, lifting her hips and dragging her legs across Quinn's lap as she backed away to the other seat. Quinn's breath hitched and her heart clenched more painfully as Rachel's heat left her.

"Yeah, I'm not sleeping well." She breathed out. Her face and body felt too warm, and so she took off her Cheerios jacket and threw it the back seat.

Rachel watched her with a frown, watched the slight tremble in her hands and the way her chest rose and fell with shallow breathing. The marks under her closed eyes were almost purple and a slight sweat glowered in her face and neck, the–

"Quinn, your scar!" Rachel gasped, boldly hooking a finger on the collar of the blonde's uniform and yanking to expose her shoulder.

Quinn cursed herself mentally when she realized she forgot to put on her winter undershirt or wear a scarf to school. She looked at Rachel, trying not to look bewildered.

"I –I heal fast, and –and my mom gave me this cream –"

"It's completely healed! No cream or great skin complexion could ever –I mean, not that I'm insinuating that you're –"

"Rachel, I need to go home." Quinn's voice wavered slightly, her hands almost shaking out of control. "I think you should –"

Rachel looked at her with narrowed eyes, mouth slightly agape and shallow breathing. She seemed to carefully select her next words.

"Are you tired?" She asked slowly.

Quinn frowned.

"I already told you –"

"Did you miss school yesterday?"

Her heart missed a beat, why was Rachel asking her…?

"Yeah, yes."

"Why? …if you don't mind me intruding."

"Why do you care?" Quinn snapped, then pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing. "Sorry."

"You seem irritable." Rachel observed carefully.

_Could it be? _

"When you're prodding annoyingly at me, I am!"

The brunette didn't flinch at the yell.

"Do you have headaches?"

Quinn's eyes widened. How did she know?

"What are you doing?" She asked warily.

"Quinn, where were you last night?"

Now her eyes were almost out of their sockets. The blonde clenched her hands in her lap and took a deep breath, trying to calm down the pounding of her heart against her ribcage. Rachel didn't know, she didn't, it was impossible. What if she walked around town being another person inside her mind and bumped into Rachel? What could she have possibly said? What if she did something…?

"You need to get out." She whispered.

"Quinn…"

"Please get out."

"Okay…"

Rachel opened the door and got out of her car as Quinn quickly turned on the engine and backed away slowly. She saw her heaving as she looked through the rearview mirror and drove off.

Turning around, she shoved her still trembling hands inside the front pocket of her hoodie and reminded herself that she didn't believe in coincidences anymore, not about this. As she walked home, she tried to ignore the ache on the muscles of her legs and thought of what she was going to search that night after dance lessons and dinner with her dads. It was the most ridiculous, impossible thing it had ever occurred to her; but as she thought about what happened with Quinn just minutes ago, it didn't feel like such a preposterous thing anymore.


	5. Untitled 4

_Chapter four._

Quinn avoided Rachel like the plague for the next three weeks. Whatever it was the brunette had seen her do or whatever it was she knew, Quinn didn't want to talk about it. She'd thought before that she'd be hungry for any information she could get about what was happening to her, but when it came down to it, when the illusion was a reality, she was terrified of knowing. Especially because it was Rachel; she was the one who could maybe help her, and Quinn couldn't bear the thought of opening herself up to harm in front of her.

She tried to convince herself it wouldn't happen again, but she still checked the date every time she woke up, even if every time, she woke up in her bed. There seemed to be a pattern, weeks of normalcy and then… She knew trying to convince herself was in vain, but there was nothing else she could do. Even if she thought about talking with Rachel every day, even if her entire body ached to turn back every time the girl tried to approach her and she walked away, she just couldn't.

Without the Cheerios, she didn't have physical activity to occupy her brain and tire her body, so she woke up early every morning and went for a jog. After a week, Quinn noticed she passed in front of an ice-skate rink on her way back, and the itch came to her and wouldn't go away.

When she was in middle school, trying to lose her baby fat, she discovered a passion for ballet. In her old town, she went to a huge art building with several floors, one for each activity, and the first one was an ice-skating rink. After every ballet class, Quinn would go there to wait for her mother to pick her up, and she would watch girls and boys do figure skating. It amazed her the similarities it had with ballet, but the way it was also so different, so _exciting_, and her mother thought it was another good sport to model her figure. She hadn't practiced in years, not since moving to Lima, but she didn't see why it wouldn't be a good idea now.

It was the first time she had some sort of normalcy in her day for months now, and she saw the relief in her mother's face when she came back beaming from her first class. She told her how her feet hurt and how she almost fell as soon as she stepped into the ice, all with a smile, and her mother started smiling too, and soon they were remembering classes and the only competition she was in, laughing all the way through dinner. Quinn went to bed with a smile for the first time in a really long time, and when she woke up the next morning, she lay in bed with her eyes closed, feeling the sheets and taking deep breaths.

* * *

><p>Rachel walked into the bathroom between first and second period to wash her face and try to soothe her headache when she heard faint noises from one of the stalls. She stood still, admiring the dark rings under her eyes, and heard it again.<p>

"Quinn?" Nothing. "Quinn, is that you? Are you okay?" Still nothing. "Are you… is your head hurting?" She took a deep breath and splashed cold water to her heated face before bracing herself. "My head hurts a lot. It's pounding and my temples feel like they're going to explode… it's been hurting all week." She finished in a whisper, but she still got no answer. "It stated as a mild headache but it got stronger every day. I took Advil and a stronger ibuprofen but they didn't work. I'm… also really hungry all the time a-and it's been harder to control my temper." Her voice wavered as she gripped the edge of the sink, her knuckles white. "Please… please answer me."

"I'm scared." Quinn whimpered from inside the stall. Rachel's head snapped up, her own teary reflection staring back at her.

"I'm scared, too."

"I don't want to talk about this. Please go."

"No, Quinn, please –"

"I don't want to know!"

"Just…" Rachel trembled. "Maybe tomorrow you'll wake up with a fever. Today, before going to sleep, prepare a bag of clothes." She whispered and waited for a response. "Okay…" She nodded to herself. "Prepare a –a bag of clothes and don't go out of the house without it."

She splashed more cold water to her face before walking out of the bathroom.

Inside the stall, Quinn sat on the toilet lid, both hands covering her mouth and tears streaming down her face.

* * *

><p>Rachel knew it as soon as she woke up. Her head hurt almost to the point of crying and she felt hot all over. With shaking hands, she grabbed the note she scribbled yesterday and set it on top of her backpack. Her mind was heady and she didn't know how long she could continue to control herself, so she quickly washed her face and teeth in the bathroom and put on some sweats and an old pink Barbra t-shirt. They were the most old, ruined clothes she possessed, and she chose them in case she couldn't find them tomorrow. Today was the day, she felt it in her bones, and so she grabbed her backpack and left the note on her freezer before shakily walking out of the door.<p>

As soon as morning air hit her face, she sighed in relief. It felt so good, and she quickly realized she was walking down the street without thinking about it. She allowed her body to follow that pull at her waist as she walked down the street, farther away from home. She didn't feel tired even as the sun set high in the sky, indicating noon. Her body propelled her forward, she could feel every muscle working and warming and she prayed she could stay in this semi-consciousness all day. Shops passed by her and houses became further apart, she was aware it was the afternoon but she felt no hunger, no exhaustion, and her headache lessened the farther she walked and her muscles worked. The air around her began to change, became colder, the sun started disappearing and that's when she sprinted, a grin forming on her face while she ran. The thought of night approaching made her so happy she wanted to laugh, and as she made her way between the trees, she felt Moon light washing over her and her chest reverberated with happiness. Laughter found its way out of her throat and she ripped the backpack off her shoulders. She ran and jumped branches and her clothes were flying in the air. A sharp cry, far away across the river made her almost falter in her step, but there was no stopping her body and in the back of her mind, Rachel knew her theory was coming true. As she fell to the floor, a scream tearing her body apart, she heard that nasal baritone noise filled the air, and everything went black once more.

* * *

><p>As soon as her mind woke up, Quinn opened her eyes wide and screamed into the sky at the top of her lungs. Her stomach hurt at the sensation and she pounded her arms and legs onto the hard ground. She screamed until her throat was raw and her eyes burned and then she got up, ran through the trees until she spotted the river and launched herself to the cold water.<p>

It took her less than usual to find her clothes because this time, she brought a backpack. She got dressed clumsily with shaking hands and trembling limbs and ran down the path, to the road, and the miles to the bus stop. She cried for the entire trip and, as soon as she got home, she threw her backpack into the coat closet and headed out again for her morning run. Everything hurt; her throat, her feet, her entire body and her head, but when she ran her usual route and got home again, she found her hands almost didn't shake at all, even if the rest of her body did.

Come Monday, she swore to herself to find Rachel and finally talk, because it was painfully obvious now that, whatever was happening to her, maybe to _them_, wasn't just common. And if Rachel could tell her what to expect, maybe she could start to get a hold of her life once and for all, otherwise, sadness would eat her alive.

* * *

><p>Rachel hadn't been able to concentrate all day. She got a note in her locker to meet Quinn in the parking lot after school, and nerves were getting the best of her. It was one thing to have theories and charts and about eleven bookmarks about it on her computer, but she knew that once she said it out loud, it was going to be real. And Quinn… she was either going to work with her, or laugh at her, or maybe even slap her in the face.<p>

Still, Rachel's memories, as blurry and confusing as they were, were impossible to argue against. If only she could project them to Quinn…

The blonde was leaning against her car, legs crossed and arms holding each other on her stomach. She looked really tired, purple bags under her eyes and gazed unfocused, and Rachel saw so much of her own physical appearance in the blonde that some of her uneasiness went away.

"Hi." She said shyly, almost bracing herself for rejection even if it was the blonde who left a note for her.

"Hey, Rachel." Quinn turned around and opened the car door, reaching over to open the passenger side.

Rachel got the hint and slide in, fastening her seatbelt. They sat in silence for a while.

"I want to talk about it." Quinn whispered dreadfully. "But I know it's bad and I don't know if I can handle it."

"Could you take me home?" The blonde whipped her head to face Rachel, a confused, hurt expression on her face. "Quinn! I mean, I have a lot of things there that perhaps I could show you." She saw the blonde relax a little and nod, turning the car on. "Could I possibly… ask you a few questions as we go?"

Quinn inhaled deeply and slowly through her nose and blew the air with her mouth.

"Okay."

"How did your scar really heal?"

Quinn bit her lip and furrowed her brow. She didn't say anything and when they stop at a red light, Rachel gently placed her hand on the blonde's elbow.

"Look." She whispered and pulled up her shirt, turning her body so Quinn could see her own healed scar. She heard the blonde inhale sharply. "I woke up… I woke up and it was like this, just… completely healed."

Quinn turned back to look forward when they heard a honk behind them and started driving in silence again.

"It happened the same way… for me." She said at last.

"And… the headaches… do you have them?" Quinn nodded. "For how long?"

"I'm… not sure. A week, maybe?"

Rachel nodded, fiddling with her hands in her lap. They were talking in whispers even if they were the only ones in the car, but she didn't think she could talk about this any other way.

"Fever?"

"I think so."

"For how long?"

"A –a day. Maybe two."

Rachel bit her lip, nodding as she looked out of the window. This was just… too strange. It didn't seem like real life; she hoped to wake up any given second, but despite her flair for the dramatics, she wouldn't pinch her arm. It couldn't be so delusional if Quinn was experiencing it, too.

They got to her house and Quinn parked at the garage entrance, and they sat in silence for a while longer.

"Are we dying?" Quinn asked with a trembling voice.

"I don't think so." Rachel whispered back.

"Are we going insane?"

"Maybe."

"Rachel." Quinn whimpered.

"Let's go inside."

"I miss days." Quinn whispered as they sat on the couch, backs against opposite armrests. "I… can't remember what I did, and I wake up…" She didn't dare say it.

"I remember things now." The blonde looked up at the implication that Rachel missed days, too. "It happened four times now, the… blackouts. But I've been trying… to control myself, so I'm starting to remember…"

"Please tell me what happens when you wake up." Quinn whispered desperately, clenching her jaw and her fists.

Rachel looked up at her with a look on her face… Quinn felt her eyes piercing through her under those endless eyelashes, a glint that told her that Rachel _knew_. She knew.

"Do you run from your house to the woods?" Rachel asked instead. Her voice was no longer a whisper and Quinn felt that, whatever doubt the brunette had in her mind, it was gone now. If she wasn't sure before, she was now.

"Yes." The blonde bit her lip, tears streaming down her face. She didn't know if it was fear or relief, or perhaps both, and she couldn't tell the difference. Rachel's eyes didn't soften, and Quinn watched panicked as she got up from the couch.

"It's okay." She cupped her cheek. "I'll be right back, please don't cry."

Quinn nodded and wiped at her cheeks as Rachel disappeared from the living room, she slide down until her body lay completely on the couch and closed her eyes. Just the knowledge that Rachel had any idea of what was going on was enough for her mind to shut down for a few seconds, for her lungs to finally fill completely with air.

Rachel got back balancing a glass of water on top of a notebook and a computer, and Quinn quickly got up and took the glass before it turned into a disaster.

"It's for you." Rachel indicated to the glass with her head as she sat down on the couch and opened her computer, a bright screen suddenly illuminating her face. "I realize this is going to sound utterly foolish to you, Quinn, and believe me when I assure you I would react the same way if the situations were reversed. But first tell me, do you recall any event from these days we forget?"

"I… don't know." Quinn admitted, sighing. "Every time I wake up, I'm so scared… anything I might remember, I shove it to the back of my mind. I –I was scared, still am, and I didn't want to think about it."

She expected Rachel to be mad, but the brunette nodded her head, a side smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"I thought I had a brain tumor, but what happens to me has clearly nothing to do with it."

"I think –thought, I thought that maybe… I had multiple personality disorder." Quinn whispered finally. Just to say those hunting words took a very light weight out of her chest.

"It doesn't quite work like that, thought, does it?" Rachel smirked. Quinn immediately envied whatever knowledge she had, no matter how foolish she thought it was.

"I don't know."

"I remember walking all day and then running all day." Rachel said and looked at Quinn. They locked eyes and Rachel took a deep breath. "When I wake up in the morning, my head feels like it's splitting in half and I'm… really warm, with a fever. But then the air outside feels so good and my body… there's this tug, this pull I can't elude that makes my mind take the back seat and… does any of that happen to you?" Her voice was vulnerable again and Quinn closed her eyes, forced her mind to try to remember.

"I can't control my body." She whispered with her eyes closed and her brow furrowed. "And when the night comes… I'm running through the trees. And I'm…"

"Laughing?" Rachel whispered.

"Yes." Quinn breathed out. "But then I fall and… everything hurts. And I scream, but I'm not sure if it's me or…"

"Because it sounds far away."

"Yes." The blonde opened frightened eyes and met deep brown ones. "Are you going to tell me now?"

"First…" She cleared her throat. "First, let's go over the symptoms."

"Okay."

"Headaches and fever… all a week before every incident." Quinn nodded. "Do you feel hungrier these past months?"

Hazel eyes widened.

"I do."

Rachel nodded.

"You're irritable and sometimes unable to control your mood."

Quinn opened her mouth, not quite able to close it after she nodded once more.

"I growled at a jock." Rachel chuckled, somewhat breaking a little of the tension. Quinn smiled.

"And… the incident… it happens once a month."

Quinn nodded, trying to grasp at whatever conclusion Rachel seemed to get from all of the facts.

"There's once last thing." Rachel opened her notebook and flipped the pages, intermittently reading and looking at Quinn. "Your first blackout… do you remember the exact date?"

"December 21st."

Rachel bit her lip.

"Second?"

"January 19th."

Rachel let out a shaky breath and closed her eyes. She rested both palms wide open against her stomach and hesitantly said the last two dates out loud.

"February 18th and… March 19th."

When she opened her eyes, Quinn was looking at her with an unreadable expression on her face. She took the notebook out of her hands and her eyes roamed over the page.

"Mo –Moon calendar?" She stammered out.

Rachel bit her lip, waiting to see if the information sunk in. But Quinn just stared blankly at the sheet in front or her, so Rachel opened a window in her computer and calmly replaced items on the blonde's lap. Quinn read with one hand gripping the couch and the other softly pressing the down arrow. After an endless eternity, she looked back at Rachel.

"You're not serious."

"Quinn…"

But Quinn's face hardened. Her jaw set and she stubbornly shook her head. Rachel could see her eyes setting forward, shutting her out.

"I actually thought…" She shuddered, the movement spilling her tears down.

"I'm serious about this!" Rachel pleaded.

Quinn set the computer between them on the couch and stood up quickly, her back stiff and her face contorted into some sort of emotion beyond Rachel's comprehension.

"Don't go… Quinn!"

But the blonde was out of her living room in a blaze of impossible speed, slamming her door two seconds later.


	6. Untitled 5

_Chapter five._

As soon as she got home, Quinn changed into work-out clothes and ran. She avoided Rachel's house that was usually on her route and ran. The thoughts wouldn't go away, no matter how hard she tried to push them. Even if it seemed impossible, even if she knew that stuff was made up, that it didn't actually happened… it felt right. All of her symptoms, all her blurred memories, her feelings and that tug she felt on her shoulder when she thought about it. It was the same tug she felt every month, when her body took over and followed its instincts. But the rational part of her brain couldn't, refused to accept it. It was just… impossible. That stuff was made up; it didn't happen… _werewolves weren't real._

* * *

><p>Rachel didn't try to find her at school, and it simultaneously relieved and scared Quinn. She didn't really want to talk about it, didn't want to believe it; but somewhere in the back of her mind, the thought of Rachel giving up on her so easily made her uneasy. Mostly because she didn't want to be alone, because she didn't want to be left without any explanation again of what might be happening to her… to <em>them.<em>

She tried to distract herself with Sam and skating and running, and it worked for the most part, except the thoughts plagued her as soon as she stopped doing those things. Hanging out with Sam was fun; she did homework with him at her house and sometimes watched movies. The break-up was the most progressive, natural and friendliest thing. They were never much of a couple to begin with, and now that she wasn't a cheerleader anymore, there wasn't any popularity boost they could get out of each other. They still sat close and hugged, even held hands sometimes, because they had feelings for each other, just not romantic ones. But sometimes she couldn't bear to be with him and keep up an appearance, like she didn't think she was going insane. Sometimes, she rather be alone, even if it made her gloomier still.

Skating brought a feeling of accomplishment she didn't get out of cheerleading after the pregnancy. Quinn caught up quickly with what used to be easy and fun for her, almost like second nature. She went from going one class a week to three, and staying until noon on Saturday s to help her teacher with the little girls. She could see the relief in her mom's face every time she saw her smiling when coming home from a class.

But weeks later, when she woke up with a headache for the third day in a row, she couldn't hold it in any longer. As soon as she got home from school, Quinn sat on her desk, opened Google and read the entire day until her mother called her down for dinner. That night, she prepared a bag of clothes and left it at the foot of her bed.

Still, relief overwhelmed her when she woke up in her own bed without a fever, but she remained cautious until she got safely to school. A note fell out of her locker when she opened it, a neat square of pink paper that simply read "_Full Moon this Monday._" Her body hummed with _something_ when realization sunk in, and her wound throbbed at the beat of her pounding heart.

All through the day, she tried to confront Rachel. She wasn't sure if it was to tell her to leave her the hell alone, or to ask for help. She desperately wanted help, but didn't know how to ask for it, and every time she got remotely close to the brunette, she just couldn't do it. Quinn was aware Rachel saw her faltering a few times, but that wasn't new. If anyone saw her insecurities or her moments of hesitation since the moment they met, it was Rachel. That was why it was so hard for Quinn to be around her, it was why she was so guarded and defensive… Rachel saw right through her.

That night, as she lay in bed, her mind couldn't stop running, and all through the weekend, she was simultaneously anxious and afraid of Monday. She wanted everything to make sense again, once and for all, even if it meant sharing a lunatic delusion with Rachel. She was anxious to find out, to remember, but also afraid of it coming true.

As soon as she woke up, Quinn knew. Her mind felt as if it was breaking from the pain and her face and body were on fire. She felt it in her bones, and as she put on worn out clothes and headed out with her bag, she tried to focus her mind. _Remember, remember… please remember._

* * *

><p>Rachel sat on the kitchen island Tuesday afternoon, a cup of coffee on one hand and a quarter of vegan chocolate cake on a plate. She was exhausted and hungry as hell. Even though she knew it was coming, it didn't get easier. She still remembered the same things from the day, but the night was still as blurry. Colors and sounds were most of her recollections, and feelings like hunger and smells and feet and hands hitting the ground.<p>

She was in the middle of the second cup of coffee when the doorbell rang. She slid with her socks through the hardwood floor and slightly opened the door without unlocking the chain lock. A barefoot and bleak Quinn stood on the other side. Gasping, Rachel tugged on the door before realizing it was locked. She closed it quickly with a slam and opened it two seconds later, and Quinn's expression remained the same. She was looking down to the floor and her hair was poorly done, framing her face.

"Quinn!" Rachel exclaimed, tugging on her arm to pull her inside. "Why are you in a shirt? It's cold! And you're… barefoot." She finished in a murmur. When the blonde didn't answer, Rachel pulled her to the couch and sat her down, covering her with a blanket. "Please don't go anywhere, okay?"

The brunette came back minutes later with a steaming cup of coffee, chocolate cake on a plate and a long sweater and wool socks. She set everything on the table and handed the clothing to Quinn. The blonde sniffed as she put them on, then threw the blanket on again and drank half the coffee in one go.

Rachel simply sat on the couch next to her with her knees pulled against her chest and her cheek resting there, looking into the air.

"You're quiet." Quinn whispered.

"I'm tired."

The blonde nodded and ate in silence, and Rachel almost chuckled when she saw her licking her fingers.

"Do you want more?" Quinn began to shake her head, but Rachel cut in. "I already ate two pieces and I'm going to get more right now. I also drank two cups of coffee. So, do you want more?"

"Okay." Quinn nodded quietly.

Twenty minutes later, Quinn mirrored Rachel's position on the couch with their knees pulled up against their chest and their cheeks resting on top.

"This is impossible." Quinn murmured after a while.

"Yes, but don't you feel it?"

"I do."

Rachel heaved a sigh, and minutes later, they were asleep.

When she woke up, the living room was dark and there was barely any moon light streaming through the window. She could guess by Quinn's frame that she was curled into a tiny ball under the blanket with her head resting on the armrest. It almost physically pained her to wake her up, but her mother would probably be worried. Getting on her knees on the cushion, Rachel held herself with a still mildly shaking hand on the backrest and rested the other hand on the blonde's shoulder.

"Quinn? It's late; you should probably call your mother… Quinn." She felt her stirring underneath her, whimpering, and Rachel had to bit her lip and close her eyes for a second. "Hey… wake up, come on."

"What time is it?" Quinn's voice was rasp and Rachel unconsciously cleared her own throat.

"I don't know, but it's very dark. You should stay here, but you should also call your mom. She might be worried."

"She's not." Quinn answered through a yawn, rubbing her eyes. "She's working. She has night shifts and… day shifts… I don't know, but she's not home."

"Okay…" Rachel nodded. "Text her?" Quinn sighed exasperatedly.

"If only to soothe _your _conscience." The blonde palmed her pockets and frowned. Her heart started beating faster against her chest and she bit her lip.

"Quinn?" The brunette asked after a complete minute of the other girl being still. Then she heard a groan and a sniffle and Quinn broke down into tears. "Quinn! What happened? Are you hurt? Does anything hurt? Remove your blanket, let me see if there's anything –"

"I lost it!" Quinn sobbed. Rachel halted her hands mid-air, a confused frown adorning her face.

"What… what did you lost?"

"My cellphone!" She whimpered.

Rachel sat motionless, trying not to gape at the blonde while she cried because she lost her phone. She didn't quite know how to react, but then it occurred to her that Quinn was overreacting. She rested her hands on the blonde's shoulders to get her attention.

"I'm sure that's not why you're crying, right?" She asked softly.

"I don't know." Quinn sniffled, trying in vain to wipe her flowing tears. "I don't think so." She lifted her eyes to see the brunette's worried face. "Rachel… I… I ho –howled." She whispered with widened eyes.

Rachel was stone still for the longest time, enough for Quinn to think that maybe she was going insane after all. Maybe Rachel didn't actually believe in all of that and she realized how insane everything was just with hearing the blonde say those words. But then Rachel sucked in a deep breath and lunged forward to wrap her in her arms. Quinn almost felt herself turning into goo in the warm, comforting embrace.

"Oh, Quinn." Rachel whispered so softly and full of emotion, the blonde felt a new set of tears flowing down her face. They sat there for a while, both of them crying with Quinn's face hidden between Rachel's neck and shoulder and the brunette's face hidden in blonde locks. They were so wrapped up in each other, Rachel's next words felt whispered in her ear. "I heard you."

"What?" Quinn asked, confused and overwhelmed with sensory overload.

"Every –every time I black –change… that's how we should call it, right?"

"I don't know" The blonde whispered brokenly, shrugging one shoulder.

"Every time I change I –I think I hear a scream. It's like someone's scream turning into –into an impossible growl and then… a howl." She took a shuddering breath, tightened her hold on Quinn and rested her chin on her shoulder. "I thought… it was me. It didn't seem completely plausible because it seemed to come from afar, but also most of the time I wasn't sure if the sounds were actually real or in my head because when I remember things… they're like… sounds you hear from the surface when you're under water." She felt Quinn's cheek brushing softly against hers as she nodded slowly. "But I think it's you… Quinn?"

"Hm?"

"Where do you wake up?"

Quinn reluctantly detached herself from Rachel in order to think properly. It was becoming more difficult with her scent filling her lungs and her skin brushing against her own, and her voice comforting her and lulling her into security. She felt like she could take most of the things Rachel was saying just because she was saying them while wrapping her in her arms, but she had to let go if she wanted to think coherently.

"Not always in the same place, that's why… I miss my clothes sometimes. I took a bag yesterday, I remember _that_, but I couldn't find it this morning. I walked through the trees aimlessly for a long time…"

"Did you walk here?" Rachel interrupted, astonished.

"If I had, I would still be walking, I think." She almost smiled. "I took the bus and told the driver I didn't have any money, but he let me ride for free when he saw I had no shoes or warm clothes on."

"But Quinn…" Rachel urged with her head. "Where do you wake up?"

"Right." Quinn bit her lip and frowned. "I think… always near to where we… you know…"

"By the river?" Rachel sounded surprised.

"Yes. I, um… wash myself there because of the dirt. Um… why are you looking at me like that?"

"I wake up there, on the other side."

"What?"

"I wake up on the other side of the river! I think I cross that little bridge because that's what I use to get to the path the next morning…" She trailed off.

"How could we never…"

"Eludes me…" Rachel whispered with narrowed eyes. "Quinn…" She started after a minute. "You're not… running away from me again, are you?"

The blonde bit her lip and looked down.

"I'm sorry about that… but I… I'm too scared." She whispered, distressed. "God, I don't want to cry anymore."

"It's okay." Rachel brought Quinn close again, gently removing the hand that was covering her face.

"I'm too scared to stay alone now. I should have believed you… I did, from the moment I saw that calendar, I just knew… felt it."

"I know. It feels like a tug, right?"

"Yes!" Quinn smiled, side-hugging Rachel and resting her head on her shoulder. "I don't want… we can't stay alone. Maybe we can work out things… together. If –if you want."

"Of course, Quinn. I don't want you to go through this alone, either. I even have plans." Rachel nodded once to herself.

"Care to share?" The blonde smiled, not scared this time of how comfortable she could be around Rachel if she allowed it to herself.

"First of all, we have to drive there once a month."

"What for?"

"Well… what if one day you don't find _any_ of your clothes? I think we should hide a backpack with clothes… dig a hole or hang it high on a tree."

"I would have never thought of that." Quinn smirked, amazed.

"We have to investigate, too."

"Didn't you have a thousand bookmarked pages on your computer?"

"Quinn! We can never be too informed or prepared."

"You are right, sorry."

"Don't apologize. I believe the more informed we are about our condition, the more we will remember and be able to control ourselves."

"But I didn't know werewolves even existed… I mean, sure there are a lot of stories out there, but that's fiction. I've watched Twilight and I can't turn into a beast whenever I please."

"Quinn, if you would have read the books you would know those are not werewolves, they're shape-shifters." Rachel nodded with finality.

"I can't believe how this conversation turned out." Quinn mumbled.

"Never mind Twilight, there is always a base from where fiction is drawn upon. Myths and legends are based on true facts, admittedly people confused human diseases and covered them with supernatural enlightenments, but there was always some form of truth."

"So you're saying we should watch Twilight and An American Werewolf in London. For educational purposes. "

"Yes." Quinn snorted. "Don't mock me! I know those stories are full of fantasy, Quinn, but there's no harm in watching them and learn truth and lie about them!"

"Okay! Okay, I have no trouble watching those movies with you. I think you're way more prepared for this than I am. I'm still not fully convinced I'm not just insane and hallucinating and you're already planning on forming a pack."

"That's outrageous! I would never –"

"Rachel!" Quinn grinned. "I'm joking with you." She said softly, shrugging one shoulder and biting her lip. Rachel could see the playful glint in her eye even in the poor lightning in the room.

"Right." She breathed out. "I'm just… not used to you being playful with me."

"Well don't get used to it, I'm not really like that."

They locked eyes and Rachel could feel heat rising to her face. In the back of her mind she registered that her hands weren't shaking any more.

"We should get some sleep." Rachel broke their stare, licking her lips as she got up.

* * *

><p>"You tricked me, Berry." Quinn accused tree days later from her side of the couch.<p>

"I beg your pardon?"

"There are no werewolves in this one! Just creepy vampires and creepy humans."

"I resent that, it's romantic. Perhaps even educational if we ever happen to encounter vampires…"

"Hey! Wait, no. No, don't say that. Vampires are not real!"

"I bet you thought the same thing about werewolves just a few months ago." Rachel smirked.

"Please, let's not go there. I can hardly believe this as it is. Let's pretend we're the only ones, okay?" Quinn took a deep breath. "Okay?"

"Okay." The brunette nodded. "And, for the record? I was just messing with you. "

"Ha-ha."

"Let's watch New Moon!" Rachel chirped, jumping from the couch to the DVD player and changing the DVDs, carefully saving Twilight on its box before sliding it into the shelf.

Quinn watched her, unconsciously shaking her head with a side smile.

"Do you really like the movie so much?"

"Well… I read the books before it became such a bestseller, so I'm a little fond of them… but nothing too special for me." She chuckled. "I'm just really careful with DVDs."

"Good, because that story it's not a good example for girls. I mean, hooking up with a vampire that climbed through your window and watched you sleep? And who wants to eat you?"

"Hush, I happen to like it."

"So he just… explodes and turns into a wolf?" Quinn asked as the credits rolled. "I happen to remember a lot of pain and screams… and he looks like a huge dog."

"Quinn, I told you, he's a shape shifter, not a werewolf."

"Then why did we even watch it?"

Rachel shrugged, grinning.

"I felt like it."

"You _felt like it_?" Quinn snarled.

"Down, puppy. You just seemed so –"

"Please don't call me puppy. Actually, no 'please', don't you _dare_ call me puppy."

"Okay, so you're getting your old spark back, I see." Quinn frowned. "Quinn, you looked exhausted. If I may be so bold, you've looked exhausted for _months_ now. I thought today we should just… relax."

Quinn sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"You're right." She breathed out. "Thank you. And I'm sorry I snapped at you. It's been really hard to control my temper lately; I was good at it before."

"Really?" Rachel arched an eyebrow. "Didn't seem like that to me." She murmured.

"You'd be surprised." At the look on the brunette's face, Quinn felt blush rise up to her cheeks and tried to cover it up. "Just… don't call me puppy. I'm not a dog."

Rachel smiled playfully at her.

"Ah-uuh."


	7. Untitled 6

_Chapter Six._

There wasn't any easy way to deal with it. Despite her feelings, Quinn knew it would take a while to fully believe what was happening to them. After all the movies they'd watched that month, nothing concrete came out of them. As the years passed, the werewolves stories were deformed until they were no longer wolves but gigantic dogs, furry haired and with full human thoughts, able to change from person to wolf by sheer will within painless seconds. But Rachel and her were different, a far cry from that. It was, in a way, a little disappointing. Sure, those werewolves were way cooler and maybe even happier, but they weren't _real. _The older, darker stories were more accurate, and they identified with them. Rachel still insisted they'd find some answers hidden in books and movies, and Quinn could only hope they did.

It seemed that the more they knew, the more they remembered. It was both good and bad. On the next transformation, although they weren't able to remember everything, they remembered the pain acutely. Rachel guessed they passed out or blacked out before because their bodies weren't accustomed to such pain and, surely, a transformation so unnatural; they were only theories, but they were all they had. Hanging a bag of clothes turned out to be helpful, as Rachel wasn't able to rescue any of her clothes, and they had met each other at the end of the path at noon. It had been a little awkward, but it felt marvelous as well, to be able to go home together and to know they weren't alone. Sometimes Quinn found herself thinking about what would have happened if Rachel hadn't saved her that night. Would have both of them died? Would Rachel be safe and Quinn dead? Would Quinn still be having blackouts alone, thinking she'd gone insane? A selfish part of her dared to be relieved Rachel was going through this with her, and she didn't know if it was because she was scared to be alone, or because they now shared a bond they weren't able to explain yet. But another part of her wondered if Rachel realized she may not be going through this had she not saved Quinn. She wondered if the brunette resented her, or if she regretted putting herself between Quinn and that werewolf. But she daren't ask, because what if it was true? What if Rachel resented her? Regretted saving her? Quinn rather died then, if that was the case.

* * *

><p>"Do you think we'll remember more this time?" Quinn asked as they drove to the woods to leave a backpack. Headaches had stated that day.<p>

"I hope so. While I admit it's slightly terrifying and that I do not wish to suffer the pain again, I have hope that, the more we remember, we'll be able to control ourselves one day."

"You still think it's us who's killing Mr. Linton's sheep, don't you?"

"The dates match, Quinn! If I'm going to be a werewolf, it is my duty to learn to control my abilities as best as I can! I don't want to kill innocent animals." She finished in a whisper.

"But if it's instinct, you can't help it."

"We don't know that." Rachel said sharply. "I'll never know if I can help it until I try to."

"I don't think we'll get that far this time, though."

"I know that, but we have to try, remember? Convince ourselves to remember, starting today."

"I hope this plan works, Rachel." Quinn said gently, a lingering, unsaid thought filling the air around them.

"You're scared about seeing each other." Rachel stated. It made Quinn wonder if it was that sixth sense she mentioned sometimes, or if it was that _bond_ that tided them. She felt it, knew Rachel felt it, too. Whether if they created it subconsciously or if it was something else beyond their control, she wasn't sure.

"We're wild." Quinn whispered at last. "What if… we attack each other? What if I hurt you?"

"I could hurt you." Rachel joked. She became somber when she realized the implications. "I don't think… remember… when I saved you?"

Quinn's heart started beating wildly in her chest. Was this it? Was Rachel finally going to admit she regretted it?

"Of course." She breathed out. "I'll never forget."

Rachel nodded.

"I did it without really thinking about it. It was… instinct. Of course I'll do it again consciously, even knowing the consequences. But… I'm saying I don't ever think I'll hurt you. My instinct is to protect you. Even… even as a wolf, I don't think I'll ever hurt you."

Quinn bit her lip as she tried to regulate her breathing, stop her tears. She took a deep breath.

"You don't… regret… saving me? You may not be in this situation if you hadn't." Quinn took a second to look from the road to Rachel's face when she didn't answer. The brunette was gaping at her, an unreadable emotion on her features.

"You may not be alive if I hadn't." Rachel whispered at last.

Quinn nodded slowly, feeling a headache coming again.

"You do know that's all that matters, right?" Rachel whispered once more. "It's all that matters to me."

She didn't know how to answer that. What could she possibly say? So she took Rachel's hand in her own and squeezed, silently giving her thanks, giving all that her words couldn't properly express.

* * *

><p>All the walking was conscious now; even if her body did as it pleased, Rachel knew that was happening. There was no panic now, even if the thought of the pain that came with the transformation frightened her. Either way, happiness came along with the afternoon. Knowing the Moon was coming prevented her brain to worry about the pain. She thought about Quinn; surely she was happy too, now that the Moon was coming. It became darker as she started running, laughing as she passed through the trees. She began shedding her clothes carelessly, running faster still as her muscles worked and fever made her sweat. With the Moon bright above her, bathing her, Rachel fell to the floor, a moment of panic filling her brain as what was going to happen sunk in. Her laughter became a scream as her muscles stretched beyond humanly possible, feeling as they burned like a blaze, as her body arched off the ground and she tumbled sideways to fall on her deforming hands and knees. Her head felt like it was imploding and she lost the ability to scream in agony, to make a sound, as everything inside her transformed. Her neck stretched after her spine cracked and the scream she hadn't stopped trying to release came out nasal and louder, a howl that filled everything inside her and around her. Soon, her sounds were accompanied by others, far away; a distant howl that made her spine arch for a second before she crunched down, front paws stretched forward against the ground and ears listening intently. But then it was over and she crashed her teeth together before clenching her jaw and sprinting forward, running ahead in search for that smell that filled her nostrils and flooded her brain, making her unable to think about anything else.<p>

* * *

><p>Quinn jumped from the ground as soon as she woke up, looking around warily and covering her bare chest. She was alone, as always, but something in the back of her mind had her body in alarm. Trying to remember the night before as she tried to find her clothes was like grasping at a fading dream; if she stopped thinking about it for a second, she'd forget. The day part was always the same, and she was able to remember everything because (Rachel suggested) she was still human at that point, even if her body worked all day to be able to transform itself at night. Her oversized shirt was lying in a heap next to a tree, and she crunched down resting on its body to pick it up with shaking hands. After what felt like a lot of time searching, she gave up and headed for the river. There was something… something in the back of her mind… She knew her mind was trying to suppress it and she was fighting against it. It felt important. As she submerged in the water in a jump, the memory came back to her like a punch in the brain; it literally felt like that.<p>

_Her hands and feet –her paws, were hitting the ground steadily, a _thump-thump_ that reverberated through the trees in the otherwise silent ambient. There was a scent that charmed her, had her running forward to it. Her lungs worked easily against the warm night air, filling and releasing, and her lungs were heady with the scent that reached her every time she breathed in. Her tongue came out to lick her snout as she halted close to the source, one front paw into the air as she slowly rounded what was covering her prey from view. But her body froze at the sight and smell and _feel_ of the other creature before her. Its scent was something else entirely, both threatening and mesmerizing. Its body was grand and its hair almost as black as the night. She found herself baring her teeth to it, without making any sound. The creature scared her, and the creature was eating one of _her_ preys. She stood on edge, unable to tear her gaze away from the beast before her, trying to decide the wisest next move. The creature's scent was familiar; she recognized it as something akin to her own, but she didn't know if a fight was wise, if it was even an option. Eventually, hunger and impatience decided for her as she walked backwards, until the creature was far away. Then she turned around and headed for a weaker, but not less appealing smell._

Quinn was still on edge as she approached the tree were the backpack was hidden, only to be met with the sight of Rachel Berry, in all her naked back glory.

"Don't turn around." Quinn warned shakily.

"Okay!" Rachel shouted back, digging into the backpack and finding a shirt. "Do you need anything?"

"Some, um… pants. I found my sneakers while I walked here."

Rachel turned around and threw a pair of sweatpants at her, but Quinn flinched as reflex and let them drop to the ground.

"Are you ok?" Rachel was next to her in three long strides, raising a shaking hand to Quinn's face and tilting it up. "You're not hurt, are you?"

Quinn shook her head and bowed to put on the pants. Should she tell Rachel she saw her? Would Rachel truly want to know she killed a sheep hours ago? She knew she had to know, it was progress. One of Quinn's fears had proven itself inconsequential, she had beaten her brain in trying to suppress her memory and she had controlled herself in front of Rachel. Everything was amazing if a part of it wouldn't dishearten Rachel.

"Quinn, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm really sore, can we go home?"

"Sure." Rachel didn't sound or looked convinced as she reached down to shoulder the backpack and Quinn had to help her stand straight again. "Looks like I'm a lot sore, too. I remember running a lot."

"Yeah, me too." Quinn mumbled, lacing her arm with the brunette's. "Do you want to go to my house, maybe eat vegan crepes?" Perhaps she could charm Rachel with vegan food and maybe it would make her feel better… yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

* * *

><p>Rachel waited two weeks until she couldn't hold it in anymore. Quinn was acting weird. She could tell the blonde was hiding something from her since the last transformation, and she was scared of what the blonde might have saw or did. Whatever they had couldn't work if there wasn't trust, if they were holding back. Since summer vacations had started, Quinn made up excuses not to see each other. Hanging out with Sam, with Brittany and Santana, doing things with her mom, insanely skating schedules… Rachel was no fool. Just two days ago, Quinn said she was going to Santana's house when Rachel knew very well she was on Cancun with her family.<p>

No matter how scared she was about the reason her friend was holding back, Rachel had to know the truth. So if The Wizard didn't come to Dorothy, Dorothy would go to The Wizard. That's how she ended up knocking on the Fabray home at two in the afternoon. Quinn opened the door grumbly, a towel around her body and short wet hair clinging to her neck. She immediately brightened when she saw Rachel on her doorstep and then grimaced a second later.

"Hello Quinn." Rachel said sternly, pursing her lips.

"Hi Rach, I was just about… to call you. Um, come in?"

"Thank you." The brunette stepped into the house and crossed her arms across her chest.

"So… how are you? I haven't seen you in, like…"

"A week."

"Right. So…" Quinn scratched the back of her neck uncomfortably and looked up when she heard the other girl sigh.

"Quinn, can we talk?" Rachel asked tentatively. She hadn't seen her so unsure in front of her for quite a while, and it was an unwelcomed sight. Quinn immediately knew she had made a mistake in staying away from Rachel.

She nodded, walking to the kitchen and sitting on a stool by the island. Rachel imitated her position in front of her and Quinn took a deep breath to steady herself.

"I know I've been avoiding you… I'm… so sorry."

"What happened?" Rachel bit her lip when they hurt didn't stay away from her voice. "Did I do something to upset you, because I truly –"

"No! Rach, wait, let me explain. Okay?" She waited until she got a nod in response. "The last time we… you know… I remembered something. And… I was reluctant to tell you because there's good news, but also a bad one."

"I want the bad one first." Rachel blurted out.

"They kind of come together, so…" Quinn took a deep breath. "I was running… there was this scent… I couldn't stay away, so I ran towards it and there was… Mr. Linton's farm." Rachel gasped. "I went slowly around it and there they were… the sheep."

"Oh, no."

"I'm sorry, Rachel… I stood back because there was something else there. It was a black wolf and it was eating –"

"It was me." Rachel covered her face with her hands, and Quinn could see her shoulders trembling. She quickly stood up, forgetting the towel that feel to the floor, and wrapped her arms around the other girl's waist.

"I didn't want to upset you." Quinn whispered, Rachel's tears affecting her beyond her comprehension. "I didn't want to tell you, but I also couldn't lie to your face."

Rachel wrapped her arms around Quinn's neck at that, and they stood there for a while as she sobbed and hiccupped.

"I'm sorry; my tears are all over your shoulder." Rachel tried to wipe them away with her palms as she pulled away.

"It's okay." Quinn murmured as she stroked Rachel's hair away from her face and dried her tears with her thumbs. "I was in the pool, so…" She shrugged. "Water?"

Rachel nodded and whipped at her face with the bottom of her t-shirt, calming down her breathing.

"It's still hard to control strong emotions." She excused herself.

"I slapped Santana in the face." Quinn confessed as she handed her the glass. Rachel raised both eyebrows. "I got mad at her for something she said and I couldn't control myself. Thankfully Britt was there, otherwise Santana would've _punched me_ back."

Rachel chuckled after gulping down her water and Quinn got a small satisfaction from that.

"And the good news?"

"Can't you figure it out yourself?" The blonde raised an eyebrow. She watched as her friend scrunched her face up in thought, coming out blank.

"I saw you, Rachel!" The brunette grimaced and she was quick to correct herself. "You were there, and I could see you and smell you and you had _my prey_!" Rachel's lower lip trembled. _Fuck_. "Rachel, I walked away! I didn't hurt you!" Quinn beamed as she grabbed onto the brunette's shoulders to make her understand.

"Oh." Realization dawned upon her and her face lit up. She grabbed both of Quinn's hands, keeping them in place. "How did you do it?"

"You were… a part of me saw you as a threat, I think… but your smell… uh, it was special; similar to mine, but calming. I don't know how to explain it, but it was like… I knew I wouldn't hurt you, so I left."

"That's interesting." Rachel hopped off the stool, giving Quinn only a second to step back. "Do you think we'll recognize each other as werewolves or maybe somehow realize we know each other? Perhaps there's something meaningful about being bitten by the same werewolf, like we share some supernatural bond! That should explain a few things about why we can sense some things about each other and I think I read something in that web page… –"

Quinn sighed as Rachel started rambling on her own and wasn't really talking to her anymore. She wouldn't be able to catch up on her line of thought, so it was better to just wait until Rachel came out with a clean theory they could discuss. Turning towards the stove, she set the pot for the green tea Rachel would surely want in a few minutes and quickly went out the back door to put on the bathrobe she'd left by the pool. There wasn't going to be any more lounging today, she was sure of that. She grabbed the stack of papers from the bottom drawer along with a pen and handed it to Rachel when she started waving her hands around, as if thoughts were pouring from her ears and losing themselves in the air. Grabbing two mugs, Quinn chuckled as Rachel sat down on a stool once more and began scrabbling away furiously. At least she had taken things relatively well, and they didn't have to stay away anymore. Quinn sighed, only a week had been too long.


	8. Untitled 7

_Chapter Seven._

Rachel woke up on Friday covered in sweat, crying out in pain. Her head throbbed like her brain wanted out of her skull and her ears pounded. She really, definitely, most positively hated summer. This week had been the worst, apparently hot weather didn't mend well with headaches and fever. She desperately wanted to take a shower, but she knew she had little time. Grabbing the shortest shorts she could find and a tank top, she grabbed her back pack and headed out. By now she was almost heading into the correct direction by herself, but her body still insisted in tugging her forward and she started walking. Summer meant more heat that worsened her fever and shorter nights, that seemed to have her body on edge. Her muscles weren't hurting, they never did on this day, at least until the night, and her lungs filled with air easily as if they were balloons. She reached the afternoon and started running, her muscles stretching and warming almost to the point she thought she might get blisters inside her skin. Happiness filled her just at the line of trees and she grinned like the Lunatic she definitely was, her tank top finding the ground soon enough. By the time her body hit the ground and she released a groan before she was unable to make a sound, sweat had evaporated from her skin.

All last week, despite the pain they were in, Rachel and Quinn had tried to focus their minds on finding each other that night. Of course, as soon as the night came, Rachel couldn't remember that. Her instincts took her forward to that smell so captivating, waiting unflinchingly for her arrival. Her paws hit the ground rhythmically as she could hear her lungs working, but suddenly, there were other sounds behind her. She rounded a few trees and came to a halt as whatever was running towards her approached. Standing defensively with her tail upright and her teeth showing, she tried to suppress her growl as to not alert the intruder. But the sounds of paws hitting the ground became louder and with them came a scent she had never sensed before. It was familiar, threatening but mesmerizing, and she found herself unable to move as it became stronger, stronger still until she was met with golden eyes and light brown fur. They locked eyes and stood still as stones, both tails erect. Slowly, after a few minutes of scrutiny and sensing each other, the light brown wolf before her took a step forward, lifted its other paw in the air and waited. When she made no other move but point her ears to the sky, the wolf took another slow, careful step towards her. It lowered its tail and ears as they came closer, and she tensed her muscles as the wolf's muzzle came close to her own and licked a trail up her face, lowering itself before her. She opened her snout and bared her teeth, clamping them on the wolf's muzzle lightly, and when the only thing the other did was lower its ears further, her teeth disappeared and she gently rubbed the side of her black face against the light brown fur. Their scent mingled and she immediately stopped feeling the light threat the other emanated, and the only thing she was capable of doing was look up to the Moon and howl, her new companion wailing along. They were so close their scents seem to mingle and become one, and soon she felt that captivating smell of prey filling her lungs and her wolf released a whine next to her, both immediately sprinting to a run.

* * *

><p>Quinn was met with an armful of brunette as she got to the end of the path, along with squeals of <em>"Quinn!"<em> and _"Oh my God." _Despite the soreness of her body, she was able to grin like a mad woman and squeeze the tiny person in her arms between shared peals of laughter.

"That was amazing." Quinn mumbled against brown hair under her nose as Rachel nuzzled into her neck.

This closeness was something they were growing accustomed to without fully realizing it, and without really talking about it, because there was an underlying fear of it stopping if they did.

Rachel took Quinn's sweaty palm and dragged her towards the bus stop, she seemed unfazed by the fact that they had surely killed another animal mere hours ago. Quinn had a fuzzy memory of what happened after she'd submitted to Rachel, only a strong smell between them and loud sounds. Rachel spoke to her as they walked about the sensations she'd experienced when they'd ran together.

"I have an idea." Quinn declared meekly as they sat in the back of the otherwise empty bus. Rachel was usually the one with theories and plans, and it made her uneasy to present her half-cooked idea to the brunette.

"That's amazing." Rachel grinned widely, turning to rest her back against the window and her bare legs on Quinn's lap. "Tell me."

"You know how we're running all day and all night when there's a full moon?" The brunette nodded and Quinn licked her dry lips. "Perhaps… if we control our bodies, I mean… working out and trying to be more agile when humans, it'll be easier to control ourselves as wolves." Quinn stopped talking when Rachel just stared at her, brow furred and eyes narrowed in concentration. "I know it's not the same… and we're both physically active, but maybe if you come running with me and perhaps… skating with me?" She breathed our nervously, tucking her shaking hands between the seat and her thighs.

"And you could come to ballet with me." Rachel said slowly. Quinn raised her eyebrows and bit her lip, silently asking if that meant she agreed. "Quinn, I think you're absolutely brilliant!" Rachel threw her hands in the air and beamed. "It's an amazing idea, discipline as humans would give us discipline as wolves." She finished in a hushed tone.

"I've done ballet when I was younger." Quinn smiled softly. "I know I won't be as good as you, but there are similar movements in figure skating, and I could teach you how to do it if you stay after my class, when I help Ms. Cohen with the younger girls."

Rachel got head first into any ideas she would come up with, and since it had occurred to her, Quinn was able to catch up perfectly this time. They planned a schedule for running, ballet and skating for the remaining of the summer, which Rachel charted and gave to Quinn to hang up in her bedroom wall next to the moon calendar she had picked up just a month ago. Quinn's mom got used to seeing Rachel in her house often as well as Rachel's dads got used to seeing Quinn in their home, and there was something comforting in knowing the three of them liked each other. Her mom often babbled to her about how polite and lively Rachel was, and how Quinn should invite her to dinner along with her dads before the end of the summer.

In time for their next transformation, Rachel had learned all the little girl's names, something that had taken Quinn a lot more time. It had been fun to see her squealing on the ice and falling on her ass a couple of times, all the girls skating towards her to help her up because the brunette had earned their trust in the blink of an eye. Quinn had taken the hand of ballet in time, even if it cost her a little more effort than catching up with skating. They fully believed they were ready now to try and control their actions as wolves, even if for a little while. But Quinn was at an edge.

Her summer had been the best in a long time, even considering dealing with being a werewolf. She didn't know if it was sad, or what it said about her, that she was more content than ever at such an odd and confusing time. She found herself laughing and smiling now more than ever, and a part of her was scared of it ending. Even as she tried to fight it, there had never been a happy time for her that wasn't ruined by a mayor tragedy that overshadowed any sense of peace she could have accomplished, and it was hard to believe things could stay better –the way they were. She thought about sharing things with Rachel, telling her how much it meant all the time they were spending together, helping each other and having fun like normal teenagers that just happened to turn into wolves for a day. But she was afraid of sharing her secrets, even with the person she shared the most with. Quinn knew it was dangerous enough, what they were doing, and she knew she wouldn't be able to suppress her feelings forever. But she tried as hard as she could to do so, because ruining things with Rachel would mean being alone again.

She couldn't sleep with those thoughts in her head, and so she got up from the brunette's bed, careful not to wake her up, and climbed through the windowsill to the roof. The moon was hidden behind the clouds as she stared up to the sky, and she felt peaceful, a feeling entirely alien to her before. The clouds were tinted grey when she felt someone slide in beside her, covering her with a light blanket and keeping her company. The silence wasn't broken for a while.

"Do you resent it?" Rachel asked softly. "…the moon. Do you hate it, sometimes?"

Quinn really thought about it before answering. She had a feeling Rachel would know if she lied to her, anyway.

"I can't hate it." She whispered. "I think I would, though, if you weren't with me." She chanced a glance at Rachel to see her bit her lip softly, looking intently back at her. "Rachel, I… wasn't happy. I know it's probably fucked up, but I've never been more stable than now. I've never been a happy girl." She smiled softly. "And after everything that happened with… the baby… I thought I would never be fine again. I wasn't even pretending to find happiness, just… I just wanted to be at ease with things, you know? But I was sad, I was angry… and the moment came when I felt so much, it just… canceled itself out. I didn't feel anything at all, because that's what happens when you're depressed. You don't feel like crying, you… forget how to."

She felt Rachel's trembling hand clutch at her wrist as she tried not to make a sound while she cried. Quinn pulled her close, wrapping an arm around her back with a side smile.

"I think you saved me more than just from a beast, Rachel. Even if I became one, if we… I'm not… happy, yet. But I'm _fine_. And you have no idea how good that feels." She felt warm moisture against her cheek as Rachel pressed a kiss there, just under her eye.

* * *

><p>Rachel smiled from her place on Quinn's bed, arms wrapped around her knees as the blonde stood in front of the full length mirror, finishing her make up.<p>

"What?" She asked, locking eyes with the brunette through the mirror.

"You're wearing make up again." Rachel said quietly.

"What are you talking about?"

"You stopped wearing it after…" She trailed off.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. It wasn't, you know… conscious." Quinn shrugged.

"I know."

"It's good, right?" The blonde hesitated before turning around.

"Yeah." Rachel beamed as she hopped off the bed. "Ready?"

"We don't have to go if you don't want to." Quinn offered before they left her room.

"I think it's you who doesn't want to go to that party." Rachel teased, a hint of seriousness in her voice. "We can stay if _you_ don't want to."

"I'm good. Just watch that I don't drink too much or go upstairs with anybody."

"I'll be your bodyguard, Quinn Fabray." Rachel stated solemnly as she opened the front door, stretching her left hand for the blonde to go out first.

"No." Quinn deadpanned. "Do not start singing!"

"And I will always love yo– " Rachel started screaming before the blonde covered her mouth with her palms from behind.

"Bye Mom!" She screamed over her shoulder as she closed the door with one hand, trying to keep Rachel in her grasp with the other but failing miserably.

Rachel's boisterous laugh filled the front yard as they walked towards the sidewalk and then to their right.

"You're a lost cause!" Quinn screamed from a few feet away from the brunette. "Get back here, little dog!"

"I thought we weren't allowed to call each other that!" Rachel sing-songed.

"_You_ can't call me that." Quinn corrected as she catched up with her and grabbed the brunette's hand. "And you're a lousy bodyguard leaving me behind you at the mercy of my crazed fans."

"Oh, please. If _my_ fans aren't here, I seriously doubt yours will be."

"How can you manage to seem drunk without even getting to the party?" Quinn sounded amused.

"I'm not drunk, I'm happy!" Rachel grinned a megawatt smile, wrapping their linked arms around her neck.

"If you say so." Quinn mumbled with a smile.

When they got to Puck's house, music was already bursting through the entire building and two guys were holding a puking third one by the front door.

"Ugh, awesome." The blonde made a disgusted face, unwrapping her arm from Rachel's neck to hold her hand instead.

Inside everything was already crowded and they headed to the living room, where the gleeks were surely lounging on the couches.

"What's up, MILF!" Puck shouted over the loud music when he saw them arrive.

"Nothing much, asshole." She shouted back and smiled as Rachel threw her head back in laughter.

Santana eyed them curiously as they sat on the only space left on the couch, Rachel on Quinn's lap with a hand around her neck.

"What's up with you two?" She asked after a minute.

"What's up?" Rachel grinned obliviously.

"Can everyone stop saying that, please?" Quinn groaned, slapping her hand on the brunette's thigh. She kept it there for comfort even though Santana seemed to be growing a third eye from looking at them so much. It made Quinn internally pleased to be freaking her out.

Rachel kept talking to everybody enthusiastically on top of her, squirming and bouncing and throwing her head back in laughter.

"I'm not a couch, Rachel!" Quinn said loudly at last.

"What?" The brunette yelled. "Do you want me to get you a drink?"

Despite her yelling and even though they were close, Quinn's face scrunched up when she wasn't able to hear her properly. Rachel leaned down and brushed her lips against her ear.

"Do you want something to drink?" She modulated.

Quinn nodded and the brunette stood up, clearing her line of vision to an unnerving Santana.

"What's up with you two?"

Quinn merely smiled and shrugged innocently before turning to her left and continuing talking with Sam. Rachel came back just as some girls started grinding on the dance floor, much to Puck's delight. He howled at them priggishly and Rachel and Quinn rolled their eyes and huffed.

"What?" He shouted at them, smirking.

"We could do better." Rachel smirked back. His eyes clouded at the misinterpretation.

"Prove it!" He hollered at them.

Rachel looked at Quinn with a devilish grin and they took a deep breath. The sound that came out of their mouths had Puck dropping his jaw, along with the few people that weren't too drunk to pay attention.

"That's beyond creepy, dudes!" He yelled at them, flabbergasted.

Rachel grinned; they had the true deal to practice just a few nights ago. She was proud of their progress and a harmless show off was nothing to be ashamed off; she needed to show off, it's what she did. While everything was still scary and there was still a lot of progress to do, she felt peaceful at last. They still had to dominate their bodies for more than just a few minutes and remember more than an hour of the night, and in her wildest dreams she could stop herself from hunting defenseless sheep, but _it was possible_. That was the best news she could possibly ask for.

As she watched Quinn smiling widely beneath her, she couldn't help but to be proud. She was _fine_, and Rachel didn't plan on stopping until she was_ happy_. She felt the arm around her waist tighten as she traced the light scar visible on Quinn's neck and shoulder, and she wondered for a countless time if it was because of her touch or because the blonde sensed what she was thinking about. She didn't consider the whole telepathy deal some stories talked about, as amazing as that could be. She tried to be as realistic as being a werewolf allowed her to be, and so she wondered if the bond they shared (because _of that_ there was no doubt) was because they were getting incredibly close to each other, or because of something else, something supernatural. They were bitten by the same wolf and they shared their full moon nights together, and every day they talked about it and tried to find ways of controlling themselves. But Rachel had to admit, at least to herself, that her feelings for Quinn were always anything but simple, always in the line between something and something else, even if sometimes she couldn't figure out what those things were. Whatever it was, it was special, and a little scary considering their past. There was that itch in the back of her mind about what was going to happen when their last school year started. They'd see each other on Glee, but was that going to be it? They had been together all the time that summer, apart from that week when Quinn tried to ignore her in order of not hurting her, and Rachel had been unconsciously getting used to it. But what if Quinn decided to join the Cheerios once more? There would be that leap on "social status" between them, and while Rachel liked to think their bond would keep them together, there was no guarantee. Her old insecurities were trying to get the best of her, making her doubt of Quinn's attachment to her, of their friendship, and she felt abashed for doubting the one person who was consistent in her life, who was currently rubbing her waist where her own scar laid beneath. A neck stretched before her and a soft pair of lips brushed almost feather light against the rim of her hear.

"Hey, you're thinking too loud." Came the playful whisper.

She couldn't help the smile that adorned her face and she bit her lip as she shook her head. Quinn squeezed her lightly and she shrugged.

"You okay?" Hazel eyes locked with hers, a smile twitching their corners.

Rachel just nodded. They were fine.


	9. Untitled 8

_Chapter Eight._

Despite having the busiest first month of school, they still had time to hear all about the rumors. If it wasn't Jacob Ben Israel stalking them with his video camera on the first week, then it was Kurt whispering conspiratorially with Mercedes about them on the second, or Santana mocking them on the third, or Finn accusing them of being together on the fourth week of school. Rachel had to hold Quinn back from lounging at him the first time. He had chosen a bad day to cross them; apparently the third day of headaches along with all the stress of the first month of school had Quinn on an edge Finn had easily pushed her off of.

Rachel had gotten one thing clear out of all the mess: Quinn wasn't going anywhere. She had laughed in Jacob's face, paid no attention to Kurt and Mercedes, mocked Santana with her hypocrisy and defended Rachel of Finn in front of all the Glee Club. She said he had no right over neither of them and a nerve to call Rachel out on anything.

Coach Sylvester would have taken Quinn back, except she hadn't tried to go back to the Cheerios. When Rachel asked her about it, Quinn said she was busy enough, would be too sore for two weeks of every month to do flips and jumps, and she had finally gotten over school popularity and just wanted to be in peace.

Rachel hadn't joined as many clubs that year now that she had such a busy schedule. They still did skating, ballet and running together plus Glee, and Rachel still had additional dancing and singing lessons. But changing once a month took a tool on their bodies, it started tiring them mentally one week before the full moon and then physically for a couple of days after, and that's how they ended up almost every day of the previous week lying down on Rachel's room's floor, without the lights and in complete silence in order to clear their heads. The routine started on summer, and now it was their own getaway from everyone and everything, just them in the dark in silence, sometimes playing with their hands or whispering with each other.

Quinn had stopped questioning what they shared together, because she needed it, and because Rachel seemed to have no problem with holding hands or hugging or snuggling. She figured that's what real friends did, and neither of them ever had any true best friends. She had feared the new school year, feared what people would say about her and what would she _do_ when they did. But when as soon as she walked in the hallway she had that Jacob kid in her face, and she saw Rachel's expression towards her, like she expected her to run or throw slushies at both of them, she realized she wasn't the same person anymore. She didn't feel like she felt all those years, like she had to make people believe she was worth something because she didn't truly believe it. Like she needed people to fear and respect her because she didn't think any of them could love her. Everything was easy once she realized she wasn't alone now, and she wasn't sad now; she had Rachel in school and outside school as well, and she finally had her mom, and other things she loved that were outside school, like skating and ballet. And once she realized her entire world revolved around more than those walls, and she had things outside of school, she was finally able to get rid of the burden that was being at her highest in high school. And that was yet another thing she had to thank Rachel for.

Quinn realized those were, more than anything, the thoughts that led her to be in this position right now: In four legs, with a muzzle, licking another wolf's face. Her instincts were primal and she couldn't really think like a human being, her thoughts weren't coherent enough for that, but after all these months of learning and training, but most of all becoming familiar with Rachel in all the aspects of their lives, she was finally able to recognize her as one of her own. The past months of being with each other as wolves had been tentative for all that she could remember; they regarded the other carefully and sniffed each other, she always submitted to Rachel and they hunted, but this night was different. Quinn recognized her wolf as soon as she saw her, and it was the first time she found herself referring to her in _that _way:_ her wolf. _That's how they ended up rubbing the side of their faces together and whining almost like dogs. Rachel, in all her scary black figure, licked her face for the first time, and the howl that left Quinn's mouth couldn't be contained, but the black wolf just kept licking her in greeting until they sniffed something that immediately distracted them. They paused for a second, as if deliberating whether to go or not, but there was really not much of a choice once the smell intensified. As they ran, their scent mixed together until it was a collective scent, a mix between the both of them with a unique smell. She howled as soon as she perceived it, and Rachel joined and soon their noises reverberated among the trees, making the illusion of being more of them than there really were. She never felt freer than in that moment.

She woke up with the morning sun shining on her face and her body covered in a blanket. Rachel was lying down next to her, fully clothed, with a blissful expression on her face as the sun bathed her skin. Quinn took a moment to take in Rachel's appearance, her smooth cheeks and long eyelashes, the curve of her lips and the way her fingers rested laced together just below her breasts. Her feet were bare and digging into the grass, and the skin of her long, tanned legs seemed to glow under the light. Her heart thudded inside her chest at the sight before her, and she could feel her breath catching in her throat, but the reason changed after a few seconds when she realized she was _naked. _

"You tired yourself." Rachel mumbled low, her features never moving an inch. "I covered you as soon as I got a glimpse of you, but I couldn't wake you up."

"Thanks." Quinn uttered bashfully, wrapping herself with the blanket and resting her forehead against Rachel's shoulder. "Do you remember…?"

"It was amazing." She could hear the smile on Rachel's words, and her own lips stretched across her face, caressing the material of the brunette's shirt. "I wish we could stop hunting, though."

"One step at a time, right? We've come a long way." Rachel made a non-committed noise with her throat. "We're both perfectionist, we'll get there. I think it's amazing all we've done on our own."

"You're right." She sighed, rolling her shoulder to wrap her arm around Quinn's shoulders. "I'm just afraid." She whispered.

"Afraid?" Quinn propped herself up on her elbow, resting her chin on her hand and looking down at Rachel. "What are you afraid of?"

"Getting caught… hurt. What if Mr. Linton sees us… _killing _one of his sheep? It's bad enough that it goes against all my morals and beliefs, and that's not even what I'm more worried about."

"We would run, Rachel." Quinn smiled, stroking the back of her shaking hand along the side of the brunette's face. "We're pretty fast." When Rachel didn't answer, Quinn just knew she was holding back something. "What else is it? Don't hide things from me, please."

"Quinn, we were attacked."

Quinn waited, eyebrows raised, for _something else_ that was news to her.

"And you think I didn't realize?"

"No!" Rachel sat up abruptly, almost nocking the blonde to the ground. "Aren't you afraid we attack him once he's at our reach? Quinn, we can't fully control ourselves, I hope we can someday but I don't know if we'll ever do! The werewolf that attacked us didn't care that we were human! Or maybe it did, but it couldn't stop itself. Aren't you afraid of that happening to us?"

She had tears running down her face by the end of her outburst, and Quinn couldn't think of anything else than hugging her, forgetting the wrapped blanket tucked under her arms. Rachel fisted her hands in it as she buried her face on Quinn's neck and started sobbing, both of them knowing it was just residual hormone wreckage from the transformation.

"I'm afraid of running into someone, a _person_, and trying to hunt them." Rachel whispered against Quinn's neck.

"It won't happen to us." Quinn was quick to reassure, even if she wasn't really sure of that. "We're trying really hard to be better. That has to count for something, right?"

Rachel pulled back, careful not to drop the blanket until Quinn tucked it under her arms again, and dropped a soft kiss against the blonde's cheek.

"I was just really nervous because I couldn't wake you up." She mumbled. "I'm sorry. You know I have the utmost faith in us."

"Yeah." Quinn breathed out. "I'll change and then we can –"

"Can we stay here for a while? Put on some clothes, of course, but perhaps an hour? Next month may be too cold."

"Of course." The blonde smiled, shaking her head softly as Rachel immediately plopped down on the ground once more, assuming the position she was first in.

* * *

><p>"What does being vegan have to do with anything?" Quinn sighed for the umpteenth time, trying to keep her voice down.<p>

"Well, it's an improvement for your body, certainly. You're healthier, less prone to diseases, and I've seen the way you look at bacon, Quinn. That can't be healthy."

"Leave me and my bacon alone." She pouted. "You've always been more prepared than me; you have a better idea of everything when it concerns our… _project._" She rolled her eyes at what the brunette had decided they called being werewolves in public. "I don't think eating meat would change any –" She cut herself as Tina and Mike entered the choir room.

"I think eating animals is a caveman's habit." Rachel stated with a firm nod. "If we stay as far away as we can from our animal instincts and concentrate on being disciplined in all aspects of –"

"We haven't even started and you're already lecturing, Smurfette?" Santana grinned as she walked in along with Brittany.

"And you're already bitching?" Quinn quipped.

"Hide your teeth, Q." Santana held her palms in front of her chest.

Rachel giggled at the catch only she and Quinn understood, and wrapped her arms around Brittany as the blonde enveloped her in a hello hug.

Their conversation was cut short as people started showing up, Mr. Schuester last as always. Quinn was still bickering with Santana sitting next to her when the teacher started delivering music sheets for everyone, and she peered up over Rachel's shoulder to look at the highlighted part she was supposed to sing. She held the sheet as the brunette reached inside her meticulously organized bag and took out her binder with the year's Glee music so far and turned the pages to reach the proper category. But when Rachel took the paper back from the blonde's hand, she hissed and unintentionally dropped it, blowing her finger where a thin line of red blood was seeping out. Quinn didn't realize what she was doing until she had the hand between both of her own and the tip of Rachel's middle finger inside her mouth. Santana, Sam and Mercedes where gapping at her, while Rachel calmly took her hand back and softly said "_Thank you_".

"Do that again." Puck whispered on her ear from his position on the next row of chairs.

"Ugh, shut up." She muttered red as a tomato and trying to vanish into thin air from sheer will power.

"Please." He whined. "I'll pay you."

"Shut up!" Quinn barked.

"I'll pay both of you!"

"Please refrain from making more offers, Noah. Go back to your girlfriend." Rachel gestured calmly to Lauren, who was watching the entire situation as dispassionately as she would watch a bowl of broccoli.

Puck grumbled, crossing his arms across his chest like a petulant child, as Lauren patted him condescendingly on the head.

Rachel cupped her hand on the back of Quinn's neck and the blonde tensed for a second, fully aware of the stares, before reminding herself that she didn't care and relaxing.

"Instincts." Rachel mumbled when Mr. Schuester started talking obliviously. Quinn slid down further in her chair with a sigh.

No one said anything about it, and by the end of practice, it was like it never happened. But Quinn was still mortified, and Rachel had gone from amused to annoyed.

"No one remembers, Quinn. You're getting on my nerves." Rachel mumbled from her place in the passenger seat.

"I know." She sighed. "It was just… embarrassing."

"I was bleeding!"

"I sucked your finger!"

They remained silent after that, both beet red and staring embarrassingly ahead.

Rachel didn't really want to branch on the subject of their behavior towards one another. Her dads had already asked her about the nature of Quinn and hers relationship after watching them interact for an entire weekend when Quinn stayed over from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, using her bathroom and wearing her clothes. She didn't want to dive in too deep into their conduct because she was afraid of what she might find.

While she didn't care about what everyone else thought, just one month into school had them surrounded with rumors, scrutiny and ten entries on Jacob Ben Israel's blog about spotting them at the mall or the movies and that one picture of them walking hand in hand out of a store. She felt like a celebrity, which wasn't a bad thing in essence, but it wasn't the sort of publicity she enjoyed. She was used to people talking about her, but there were usually bad things and mockery, this… was different. She wasn't used to people watching her at school because they wanted to see what she did with her friends instead of laughing at her while she got slushied. Neither Quinn nor her where in any club or clique that deemed importance at the school, so why where people so pendant? Was it because they were rumored to be gay? Because it involved Quinn and she seemed to always be in the radar of rumors? She wasn't a Cheerio anymore, just an honor roll student who was in Glee Club; the very same club that doomed you to Loserdom just two years before and that was one of the main gossip themes of the school now. It hadn't fully registered on her that she seemed to be… popular, now. She always thought it would be a good thing, but now realized it wasn't so much. She liked the privacy that being a loser her entire life allowed her, she liked being around school with Quinn and acting in their own special way without Jacob or Puck leering at them and without other people whispering about them when Quinn kissed her cheek at her locker every morning. But she seemed to be losing a little bit of that now, and she was trying to not let it get to her, but she couldn't shake away the feeling of dread that Jacob spying on them caused her, especially when they turned into werewolves once a month.

"Rachel? Hey!" Quinn snapped her fingers in her face.

"Uh… sorry, I was just thinking…"

"Loudly." Quinn raised an eyebrow before turning around and opening her car door.

Rachel didn't say anything, just got out of the car and shouldered the bag with her skates that Quinn handed to her. They walked through the glass doors, immediately feeling the cold of the ice, and Rachel went to sit by the risers as Quinn walked to her teacher with a smile on her face. She'd agreed to help her with the next class today, too, and Rachel took advantage of that to skate today as well, but first there was the hour and a half where Quinn and four other girls and two boys had an advanced class, practicing a number they would present to compete at the end of the year, along with two a numbers of couples, where Quinn was paired up with the best of the boys. Time went by smoothly as Rachel had stopped bringing a book because she always got too entranced by watching Quinn on the ice. The way she skated fast from one corner to the other, then back but turning around in the middle of the rink to meet Dave, her partner, who picked her up by the waist as if she was made of glass, both of them twirling and doing impossible spins and jumps that had Rachel beaming and with her mouth agape at the same time.

It was spellbinding to watch Quinn's face as she skated, concentrating one second and beaming the next as she twirled on one foot as smoothly as if she were an Ice Princess; or the way her back arched or bowed depending on the movement and how her strong legs never seemed to falter, always beautifully hugged by her leggings. Rachel sometimes wished she were half as good, if only to be able to practice a number with Quinn and have the blonde pick her up and twirl her around. But as it was, she was happy to be able to share what seemed to make Quinn happy the most, and spend time skating with her, especially when they stayed around after the little girls where gone and skated and had fun by themselves.

Later on, as Quinn watched Rachel interact with the little girls, all beaming at her as she singed along with Björk, she felt overwhelmed by how beautiful her friend was on the ice. Her movements were as graceful as practicing ballet allowed her, and the way her pitch never faltered as she picked up girl after girl, twirled them once and then sent them back on the ice almost made her shiver with delight. Happiness seemed to pour out from her and it made Quinn wish to never miss out on any of it; no matter what mundane or incredible thing happened to Rachel to make her shine like that, Quinn wanted to be there to see it. She imagined them skating on Times Square in New York, laughing as if they were alone. Perhaps people were watching them because Rachel was already a famous star, or maybe they were still anonymous and no one paid them any mind. And watching Rachel with Spencer, one of the youngest girls with brown locks long to the waist and a beaming smile that almost held nothing on Rachel's, Quinn couldn't help but put her in the picture too. She could be Rachel's daughter, they could be teaching her how to skate on the ice, maybe take her for hot (vegan) cocoa later, one of her gloved hands in Rachel's and the other on Quinn's. And she tried hard to imagine the little girl calling her aunt, imagine herself feeling a love for them like they were a part of her life, but she knew deep down what she wanted the most. She wanted Rachel to hold her hand as they skated, meet her in the middle and kiss her with a smile; she wanted the little girl in the picture to call her Mom and she wanted her and Rachel to tuck her in bed at the end of the day, smiling exhaustedly from an entire day on the ice. She wanted to love them as if they were _her entire life_.

Her chest constricted as she tried to shove it all away, tried to evaluate Rachel and Spencer and all the other girls instead of day dreaming the scariest things she could ever imagine, she tried to shove the feelings deep inside her every day, but it always got harder. How could she stop herself from wanting to kiss Rachel when she was constantly making funny faces at her, sitting in her lap, grinning down at her so close to her face, kissing her cheek and tucking strands of hair behind her ear? No wonder everyone thought they were dating when all she could do was stay beside Rachel all day, pick her up in the mornings, walk the halls with her all day, eat with her in the cafeteria and take her home after. She knew they were the closest of friends, and she hoped no one noticed the feelings that crossed her mind every time she looked at Rachel. The happiness, the easiness she felt around her, the natural way her body always found to touch her…

"Are you okay?" Rachel smiled in front of her, taking off her scarf. "Class is done, did you pay any attention?"

Quinn smirked at Rachel's mirth.

"I was daydreaming." She chuckled with a shrug. "Ready to go?"

"Actually… I prefer staying for a little while longer." She said sheepishly. "But if you don't want…"

"No, it's okay." Quinn smiled, already skating away with a challenging eyebrow raise. "Race you?"

She laughed as Rachel's protests of cheating reached her ears from behind her, and soon they were having their usual, easy fun that made Quinn forget whatever feelings she may have, acting on them instead of worrying about them when Rachel let her twirl her around, push her away and into her body with one hand, making pirouettes and silly movements with their hands as they pretended to dance an intricate tango on the ice. Rachel's boisterous laugh filled the rink and filled her soul with happiness as she picked her up by the waist and lifted her as much as her strength allowed her, her arms going around her waist when she couldn't hold her up any longer. Rachel's arms circled her neck and she beamed and panted against her face, warm breath visibly swirling around her face as background as their eyes met and locked. Quinn fought hard to keep her smile even as she felt her insides churning as her heart wanted out, she tried to keep her composure when both of Rachel's hands cupped her neck. But then Rachel's face hid in the crook of her neck and shoulder and she felt her entire frame shake with silent laughter.

"I think we tired ourselves enough." She heard mumbled against her shoulder.

She took a deep breath and tried to steady herself as Rachel did the same, cradled by her arms. This was enough, what they had was deep and meaningful and intricate, and went beyond any feeling she knew. They were more than friends, they shared a bond that helped their feelings keep them together, and she wasn't dumb enough to challenge that, to ask more of something already so perfect. It had to be enough.

Rachel pulled away smiling, visibly exhausted.

"Hot cocoa at my house?" She beamed.

Quinn took a gloved hand in her own and allowed Rachel to pull her forward, watching her long brown hair swing from side to side as they skated slowly out of the rink. It had to be enough.


	10. Untitled 9

_Chapter Nine._

If they were looking for control, Rachel knew they had lost it as soon as they smelled it. It was a scent even stronger than the one they were used to from Mr. Linton's sheep. For a fleeting second, she was afraid of it being a human, but it was almost impossible so deep in the woods, unless they were hunters. She growled at Quinn and they stopped behind a large group of trees. The smell was strong, so alluring she could almost feel her mouth water, but she strained her ears nonetheless. Next to her, she could feel her golden wolf's body trembling, barely holding the adrenaline in. Her body went rigid as the smell got closer, and she growled at her wolf when she took a step forward. She could hear the prey's paws hitting the ground, because it most definitely was their prey now, and it was getting closer still. She realized it must not be paying attention to their smell, or simply not registering it, and she took that to her advantage taking a few steps forward, Quinn never leaving her side. Lowering her tail, the golden wolf slowly made her way to the source of the smell, tentative steps that hit the ground softly beneath her paws. She understood the initiative and tried again to locate the delicious smell. This was the first time they were going to attack something that could defend itself, she realized, when she got the first glimpse of the coyote. Dread crept up her spine when she realized how wrong it could go, but when the animal got closer it became evident that it wasn't very big. It was young, not a puppy but not completely adult, and Quinn realized it too when her body crouched down, preparing herself. Her jaw clenched when the animal's scent filled the entire air around them, and her wolf's hairs stood on end. Rachel took a few steps backwards and crouched down as Quinn prepared herself, waiting for the right time. The coyote stopped its trail and its body froze, its ears raised and its teeth bore. Then, as it made a move to step back, Rachel heard the most fascinating, captivating and daunting noise she ever heard as Quinn hurdled forward and launched herself at the animal, and when her teeth sunk down on the side of its neck, Rachel leaped forward with her back legs and landed on top of the grey coyote, her teeth finding the flesh on the other side, staying away from the animal's teeth. Both of their forces combined pinned the coyote down to the ground as its head moved from side to side, trying to defend itself in vain. Her body trembled as she felt the blood flooding her muzzle and the body beneath her going limp, and she could feel and smell the adrenaline on her wolf beside her as they broke away from the body and attacked again.

* * *

><p>Quinn woke up panting with the shining sun hitting her face, almost blinding her. What they'd done… her body was still humming with energy with it, and her hands were shaking as she buried them on the earth and filled her fists with it. It took her a couple of seconds to hear the panting breaths next to her, but she jumped from the ground to her feet in a fleeting second when she did.<p>

Rachel sat on the ground, completely naked and looking up at her with the darkest eyes she'd ever seen, panting for breath. Her breasts rose with every intake, and Quinn could feel a very warm, very moist spot between her legs. Her mouth opened and stayed that way for excruciating seconds until she realized what she was doing. It seemed to catch up to Rachel as well, because their heads turned sideways at light speed at the same time.

"S-sorry…" Quinn stammered. Her entire body seemed to be shaking, and a shudder wrecked her whole back when Rachel made a strangled noise as she breathed out.

"I c-can't believe we… did that. It was…"

"Entrancing." Quinn breathed out.

"I couldn't… how did we…"

Quinn shook her head. She didn't know how they knew what to do or how to attack, surely it was instinct behind their actions, but it felt… She didn't know how long it would take her this time to stop the trembling and the shuddering and the panting… the arousal. Her chest felt full of tingles and all she wanted was to leap on top of Rachel and…

"We sh-should find out c-clothes." Rachel stammered.

Quinn nodded and tried to think about how it reminded her of Tina to stop herself from pouncing on her best friend, and they began to walk towards the tree where they always left their bag one week before each full moon, searching for their clothes along the way and trying not to look at each other.

"I hope it doesn't become a regular thing." Rachel said once they were walking towards the bus stop and their breathing seemed to be coming back. Still, Quinn thought she seemed calmer than herself.

"It was amazing, but also… I don't know... creepy? I think I'm a little afraid of myself right now."

"Don't be silly." Rachel bumped her shoulder. "But I really hope we can put a stop to that killing thing."

"Rachel, we're _wild_. We are controlling ourselves and remembering, but I don't know if we'll ever be able to stop hunting."

"I do know I'm more capable of controlling myself than you are. I could feel you trembling beside me"

"And you still think it's because you don't eat animals while you're human." Quinn stated sullenly.

"Well yes!" She huffed.

"And I still think it's because you're more prepared than me! I _know_ you've got a bigger understanding of all of this than I have! Why do you think you're the commander when we're wolves?"

"Perhaps we should talk about this when our hormones are in check." Rachel grumbled.

"This is not about that, you know it. I can feel when it is and these emotions are completely in my control!"

"Quinn, you're screaming at me in the middle of the road!" Rachel hissed. "Just keep it down and we'll talk about this when we get to my house."

"Well, maybe I want to be alone today."

"Don't be a petulant child, Quinn. It's very unbecoming."

They walked with their arms crossed in their chest and matching stubborn expression all the way to the bus stop and on the bus as well. Only when it was Rachel's stop, Quinn stood up with her and put an arm around her waist.

"I don't want to be alone in my house." She pouted.

Rachel shook her head and bit her lip to stop herself from grinning.

"I know." She said softly, kissing Quinn's cheek. "You're cute, come on." She took her hand to walk towards the bus door.

Quinn tried to ignore the additional tingle that accompanied their touches, always there but stronger when her hormones were going wild. She could smell Rachel's scent intensified, feel more of their touches and hear the melody in her voice that much better. Rachel often talked about how she could control her pitch better now, reach her notes better and hear imperfections strongly. But Quinn just felt; felt that much more and she wasn't sure if it had to do with being werewolves or if it was just the natural progression of her feelings. But she was sure things were harder to control when the full moon approached, and after it was gone, too. Rachel disregarded the theory of the moon affecting their emotions so strongly; sure, she believed it altered their hormones in order for them to be able to change, and she believed it took a couple of days after the transformation for them to be in check again, but Quinn understood something more. She believed the moon transformed them as people thought so many years ago, that it affected their moods and emotions, but Rachel always let her down easily. It made Quinn wonder if maybe she wanted to blame the moon for her depression, or if Rachel was repressing those thoughts because she was afraid, or simply if it affected her more because Rachel had a better control of the entire situation.

* * *

><p>"Are you coming over?"<p>

"If I have to." Santana rolled her eyes. "Britt is making me, so yes."

"Wow. Hey, thanks a lot." Quinn smiled –more like grimaced, at her.

"Well, I can't say I enjoy watching you freaking with Berry more than I have to here."

"Freaking?" Quinn raised an eyebrow.

"What are you doing exactly right now?" Santana matched her bitch face perfectly.

"I'm cutting an apple."

"And why is that?"

"To share it with… okay, what is your point? We're sharing an apple, that's not weird."

"Yes it is."

"_You_ are weird."

"Are you eight?" Rachel interjected from her spot next to Quinn on the cafeteria table.

"Tell her it's not weird, Rachel."

The brunette rolled her eyes.

"Santana, Quinn and I sharing an apple is not weird."

"Yes it is! You're gonna eat another one any way, you do this every freaking day! Quinn cuts fruit and gives you half of it and then you eat another one and do it all over again!" Quinn shrugged, handing Rachel half of her apple. "Why can't you each eat one and leave it at that? You get on my freaking nerves!"

"You peel the tangerines for me, Santana." Brittany quipped.

"That's different." She huffed. "I don't eat it and you're my girlfriend. They're just weird."

"You're weird." Quinn grumbled once more.

"Perhaps you should stop paying so much attention to us, Santana. I eat with you every day and I haven't noticed any of your eating habits, so that must mean you are paying deliberate attention to us."

"Whatever. I keep expecting you two to hump each other on the table at any given second; I can't keep my guard down."

Rachel opened her mouth to protest, scandalized, but…

"You said we weren't allowed to have sex on these tables, Santana!" Brittany seemed indignant, and Rachel bit her lips to stop herself from laughing, pressing her face against Quinn's arm that was already shaking, trying to control her own laughter.

"We aren't!" Santana defended herself, beet red and almost jumping from the table.

That seemed to shut her up, and Quinn was glad they weren't on that subject anymore. Talking about Rachel and her made her insides churn with uneasiness, because she knew now that they didn't behave like best friends. They seemed even more intimate than Brittany and Santana, and she thought perhaps someone who didn't know them may confuse which pair of girls was in a relationship. Despite how affectionate their friends were, there was just _something _about the way she behaved with Rachel that seemed too intimate to be just friends, while perhaps Brittany and Santana could pass as overly affectionate, like they did for many years. But she didn't want anything to change; she didn't want Rachel to distance herself from her and she wanted to keep this ideal relationship they had where they understood each other and never got tired of seeing each other every day. Being with Rachel gave her a calm sense of peacefulness she'd never experienced; it made her feel good with herself, with everyone else and with the world. But she didn't want to broach on the subject of their relationship, even if they were still questioned and she knew Rachel must have thought about it too. As long as she didn't say anything, Quinn wouldn't either. It felt like a ticking bomb when she thought about it, but it mostly only happened when people were judging their behavior.

Much to her charging, that seemed to be happening a lot on that day. Somehow Rachel had convinced her to throw some sort of party for the Glee Club, more like a reunion, and not everyone was able to go. But there was enough people to see Rachel prance around her house like she lived there, helping Quinn with food or arranging things with her, and Quinn had to admit that if she put herself on someone else's position, it seemed as if Rachel spent a hell of a lot of time there, walking around the place like she owned it and talking with Quinn's mom as if they were old pals.

She caught Kurt eyeing Rachel when she took things from the kitchen without even stopping to think of where they were, and Finn frowning at her while she laughed in the hall with Judy talking about some show they'd watched together on TV. Mercedes raised her eyebrows when Rachel dropped down on top of her on the couch because there was no room to sit and Quinn's hands immediately started running through her brown hair.

There were a lot of things they did almost instinctually now, like knowing exactly how to do things together, where to put their hands when they hugged, or just the way they were always touching each other on some way, almost absentmindedly. Quinn turned bright red when she realized everyone, and she meant _everyone, _was watching them talk because Rachel was talking softly and running her thumbs over Quinn's eyebrows while she cupped her face, and Quinn's hands were resting on Rachel's back inside her shirt.

And she tried to ignore them, tried to keep talking to Rachel as if they weren't watching them and judging them, she tried to remind herself that she didn't care about what they thought because she was happy. She knew that, and so she wasn't sure why she mumbled that she had to go to the bathroom and stood up. Rachel frowned at her, oblivious to the stares but not to the change in Quinn's mood, but she didn't say anything.

Quinn went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet lid, chest heaving. She didn't want to leave Rachel's side and she wasn't sure why she got up at all, or why she let everybody get to her. They were most likely surprised, perhaps trying to figure out what was going on between them, but not judging negatively. But all the stares got to her, she couldn't help it. All she wanted was to go back to that couch and crawl into Rachel's skin, she wanted everyone to go away and hide under the covers with Rachel and sleep, and just the thought that they were going to stay there all night brought tears to her eyes. She realized she was having a break down, but Rachel wasn't coming to get her and she wasn't sure she wanted her to. Despite making her feel incredibly better by just holding her, Quinn wanted to be able to be okay on her own. She loved Rachel, but didn't want her emotional stability to depend on her. So she sat there, trying to keep herself from crying and making her chest and her head hurt, because she didn't know how else to deal with it.

When she went back to her living room, everyone was playing Rock Band on Puck's PlayStation and Rachel was smiling with them, but Quinn saw the concern in her eyes when her head wiped in her direction as she walked in. She smiled crookedly at her, failing miserably at trying to appear okay, and sat on a chair on the other side of the room. She didn't wait to see the confusion or maybe the hurt in Rachel's eyes, because she already knew it was going to be there and her chest was already aching for it. She needed a little distance to clear her head but wanted to be in Rachel's arms at the same time; she wanted to get through her break downs on her own, but was annoyed at Rachel because she didn't go searching for her, and she was in a bad mood because there were a lot of people in her house that she didn't want. There were enough contradictions to make her head hurt, and for the rest of the night, she kept going to the bathroom to be alone for a while and coming back to sit absentmindedly ignoring as everyone had fun.

* * *

><p>Rachel stood on edge all night. Whatever had happened to Quinn, she could see that she was struggling with something and wanted to be alone, but it was extremely hard for her to allow that, seeing as her first instinct was to just kick everyone out and be alone with Quinn. But she didn't seem to be seeking comfort, and Rachel knew it would be selfish of her to do what made <em>her <em>feel good when Quinn felt bad instead of doing whatever made Quinn feel better. But it turned out to be neither, because Quinn seemed disheartened the entire night, and when everyone left in the morning, she still seemed down. They went to sleep on her bed, and Quinn seemed to lie as far as the bed allowed her to be from her. Rachel tried to swallow the hurt of not being held for sleeping, of not being talked to, of Quinn turning her back on her on the bed and looking to the other side. Sometimes, as much as she tried, she couldn't contain herself.

"Quinn, what's wrong?" She whispered, clenching her hands into fists to keep herself from reaching out and touching her friend. "What happened?" She waited for a minute, but there seemed to be no response. "I guess you're asleep." She sighed, dejected.

But Quinn was too tense to be asleep, so Rachel concluded she was being ignored. Had she done something? They were just talking and suddenly Quinn became somber, went to the bathroom and came back completely weary. There was something troubling her, and Rachel hated herself for not knowing. She knew she couldn't just _guess, _but she should be damn able to! Her chest was too constricted for every breath not to be painful, and the tingles in her body that just begged her to touch Quinn were really hard to ignore. It felt as if they were in the last day of headaches instead of the first, and all these sensations were too strong to be blamed on that.

She may just be overreacting, but Rachel couldn't help the sense of dread that flooded her as, after two hours, they were still both very much awake, and very far away for being in the same bed.


	11. Untitled 10

_Chapter Ten._

Quinn spent the next day with Sam, and Rachel tried not to read too much into it. They didn't have to spend every day together and she knew he'd been complaining about being neglected. Quinn drove her home in the morning and smiled at her before closing the passenger door, and Rachel held fiercely to that smile to try and convince herself that everything was fine. But that feeling in the back of her head and on her chest wouldn't leave until she saw Quinn again and everything was the way it was supposed to.

They had to see each other the next day to drive the backpack to the woods, so Rachel spent all day preparing things for Glee Club and cleaning her house with her dads. At night, she fell asleep in the middle of reading a book, but not before thinking she hadn't spoken to Quinn all day. She tried not to read too much into it.

The car ride was an awkward affair the next day. Rachel looked out the window chewing on her bottom lip, desperately trying to find something to say. When was the last time they were awkward? Even when they were naked a month before, it wasn't so painful.

"How was your day with Sam yesterday?"

"Good. I spent more time with his brother and sister than with him, but it was fine."

Rachel nodded.

So… something had happened. What had changed? She wasn't sure of what to say because Quinn was acting weird. She seemed off, and Rachel wasn't sure if she had done something wrong. She kept silent for the rest of the ride, trying to figure out the best way to approach the subject.

She followed Quinn through the trees and then Quinn helped her up the tree to hang the bag on a branch.

"Um… Quinn. Help?" Rachel looked down.

The blonde smiled lightly and stood under the branch, opening her arms for Rachel to fall into. She caught her around the waist and the brunette wrapped her arms around her neck. Rachel's breath hitched when she became centimeters away from Quinn's mouth, their noses brushing together. They locked eyes and the blonde tightened her grip on her for a second, warm breath washing over her mouth, before turning her head to the side and softly dropping Rachel to the ground.

"We should go." Quinn mumbled and started walking.

Rachel trailed behind her, at a loss for words. Her heart pounded so hard against her ribcage that her head started pounding in unison, and she couldn't think about what just happened because it only made her head hurt more.

"Can we stay here for a while?" She mumbled once they were both sitting in the car. "My head is hurting."

Quinn nodded, reaching inside the glove compartment for Advil and handing it to Rachel along with a bottle of water.

"Thank you." Rachel grabbed Quinn's hand and held on as she rested her head on the seat and closed her eyes. She didn't know how else to make things better, contact was always their way of communicating when words failed.

So maybe Quinn realized she had a small crush on her, but Rachel wanted to show her things could stay the same, that she could be Quinn's friend as always even if she had stronger feelings the blonde didn't reciprocate. There was no denying that her feelings went beyond friendship and beyond their bond, that her thoughts about Quinn were more than merely platonic, but Rachel would be damned if she let Quinn walk away because of that. She could do it, she could still be just friends and even try and forget her romantic feelings. Anything to stay together, even if that desperation scared her.

"We're okay, right?" She whispered. When there was no response, she opened her eyes to find Quinn watching her intently, something strong dancing behind her eyes, making them stormy. Rachel could see the freckles even from a distance. "What's wrong?" She breathed out. She tried not to sound desperate, but she wasn't sure it succeeded.

Quinn bit her lip and looked away.

"I'm just… not feeling… so good." She said slowly, deliberately.

"Is your head hurting?"

Quinn shook her head.

"Emotionally."

Rachel sat up straight, turning to face her.

"What's wrong?" She frowned, concerned.

"Nothing." Quinn shrugged. But Rachel could see there was something she wasn't saying.

"You know you can tell me anything, right?" She squeezed her hand, but Quinn pulled her own away and ran both through her hair and then shook her head.

"I know. I just want to go home and sleep, can we go now?" She turned in her seat, facing forward and gripping the steering wheel with both hands.

Rachel frowned at her, resting her hands in her lap.

"Okay…"

* * *

><p>Quinn drove Rachel home and told her she had to go with her mom to help her in the house. She hoped Rachel didn't remember her mother's schedule and realize it was a blatant lie.<p>

Everything felt wrong. She couldn't be away from Rachel without missing her, but she missed her even when they were together. Her feelings scared her; she didn't know what to do with them. Even being in Rachel's arms wasn't close enough, she wanted to crawl into her skin, hide her face in her neck and never look up again. But she couldn't, she knew that, and that was why she rather be alone at home, crying under the covers, than being close to Rachel and staining their friendship. She had to get a hold of her feelings and keep them down, otherwise Rachel would know something was wrong, and everything would go to shit. She had a way of always knowing when she felt bad, a way of guessing just _what _the problem was. There was almost no doubt that Rachel would understand if Quinn told her she harbored romantic feelings for her, but there was no certainty that things would stay the same. And Quinn didn't want to, wouldn't be able to bear it if things between them changed. Because if it wasn't nearly enough now, how would she feel, what would she do, if things changed? Just the desperation those thoughts caused her, the physical pain in her chest, scared her.

* * *

><p>Rachel reflected on what to do. Should she talk to Quinn about it? Tell her that, even though she had stronger feelings, things could stay the same? But she wasn't sure that was even the problem, and she was a coward. She didn't want to tell her unless it was absolutely necessary. She decided on just waiting to see if that was the problem, or if there was something else. And she couldn't think with the headaches assaulting her brain, barely letting her keep her eyes open at school.<p>

Quinn was hiding her face on her arms resting on her desk, and as soon as the bell rang, Rachel approached her, resting her palm on Quinn's back. The blonde stiffened for a second, then turned in her seat and hid her face on Rachel's stomach, circling her waist with her arms. Rachel ignored her heart pounding strongly against her chest, feeling Quinn trembling slightly. Tomorrow would be full moon, and Rachel knew how strong the headaches were. Quinn was crying softly and she knew nothing else to do but to stoke her hair and run her hands up and down her warmer than usual back.

"Does it hurt?" She asked softly as soon as they were alone in the classroom. Quinn nodded against her stomach. "Poor thing." Rachel cooed, stoking blonde hair to expose her left ear. She bent over to whisper against it. "Do you want to go home? I could drive you and we could stay quiet, with the lights off."

Quinn shivered lightly and squeezed Rachel as she nodded, then let her go and whipped the tear tracks from her cheeks.

"Please, let's go."

Rachel nodded and they walked quietly out of the classroom and out the school to the parking lot, hands aching to hold each other, nails digging inside palms. Quinn's headache worsened with her unconscious clenched teeth, and she pressed her cheek against the cold window to lessen the heat that accompanied her headache, closer to becoming a fever with each passing minute.

Once at Quinn's house, Rachel went to the kitchen to grab water bottles and Advil as Quinn went up to her room. She got under the covers fully clothed, her shoes on and hanging from the side of the bed. Once Rachel got in, she left a bottle on each side of the bed and bent over to take Quinn's shoes off. The blonde curled up inside the blanket as Rachel closed the binds and curtains, the door, and turned off the light. She sighed as her ears buzzed from the sudden quiet, and took off her shoes to get under the covers as well. Quinn was in the far left side of the bed, curled up with her eyes closed and the blanket covering her head, and Rachel bit her lip at the unusual distance. She kept her head on the pillow to breath better, closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but either the headache or the need to have Quinn in her arms kept her awake. She was so frustrated and tired she could almost cry, but she refrained, instead clutching the sheets tighter and trying to relax. She didn't know how much time passed until Quinn's head peeked out from the covers and they locked anguished eyes on each other. Rachel bit her lip, frowning to keep herself from crying, and Quinn opened the covers as an invitation for her to snuggle. Rachel sighed as they quickly met in the middle and huddled close, Rachel's head going inside the covers and their bodies molding to each other, Quinn's face hiding in the crook of her neck and her arms clutching tightly at her waist once more. Rachel rounded her neck with her arms and stroked her hair, the heat emanating from both of their bodies making Quinn's nape sweat slightly. Surely Quinn could feel and hear Rachel's heart beating strongly against her ear, but she probably ignored it because her heart was beating just as strong in rhythm. They breathed deeply, and Rachel didn't mind that she couldn't sleep because this time it was Quinn's warm breath against her collarbone and her scent under her nose that kept her awake. She swore she felt her more and smelled her stronger on these days, either because her scent improved or because Quinn's hormones were changing already. She decided it was both, as with everything else. Rachel thought that everything between them was both natural and supernatural, but she still hadn't decided if it was better or worse.

"Better?" She whispered against Quinn's hair.

"Yeah." Quinn breathed out, warm breath caressing her skin.

Rachel wasn't sure if she imagined a kiss to her neck or if it was really there, but she relaxed, influenced by the feel of Quinn, and finally feel asleep.

* * *

><p>It was the first time they woke up next to each other on a transformation day. Quinn opened her eyes to find Rachel asleep next to her, still on each other's arms but now face to face. Her slender, pale fingers traced the bridge of the brunette's nose and her cheek bone, down her jaw and the rim of her ear. Her hands were trembling, but she kept her touch as soft as she could. But it was the shaky breath she exhaled the one that woke Rachel up, and Quinn looked straight to her eyes like a deer caught in headlights with her hand still on her ear. Rachel closed her eyes again and nuzzled her nose against Quinn's palm, then breathed out heavily and huddled close to the blonde, wrapping her in her arms tightly for a second as she hid her face against Quinn's chest. Quinn bit her lip and buried her nose in soft brown locks, inhaling her scent and wrapping her arms firmly around Rachel.<p>

The next time she woke up, Rachel was gone. For a second, she was surprised that she didn't woke up as soon as the brunette left her arms, but then her head was hurting like it was about to split in half. She realized Rachel wouldn't have been able to stay even if she wanted to. Getting up quickly, she changed into the usual ruined clothes she wore in case she lost them and hastily left her house.

* * *

><p>The winter night crept up upon the trees dark as a blanket, they wouldn't be able to see anything if they were human, but their wolf senses were superior. It took Rachel longer than usual to find her wolf, and it was making her anxious. But then there Quinn was, her dark gold fur shining as a substitute for the Moon light that was barely visible in the darkest night Rachel had ever been under. As if sensing her, or probably smelling her, Quinn turned her head and immediately got to Rachel in a leap and a fast run. They greeted as usual, rubbing their muzzles and licking their faces, and they were almost sure, like a collective thought, that they weren't going to find anything wild that night. But Rachel fought against her urge to go to their usual feeding spot, a rush cursing through her when she found her body obeying her orders and staying right where she stood. Quinn watched her intently, her body almost trembling when she realized Rachel wasn't going to move and she tried to figure out whether to stay or go without her. But finally, whatever sort of power Rachel had over her when they were wolves won, and she lay next to her on the snow.<p>

It was the first time they were able to be peaceful since the whole thing started, and Quinn was able to really appreciate the peace and quiet of the forest, the warmth of her body, specially next to Rachel's, and the improvement of her senses that allowed her to hear, see, smell and feel that much more. The way the grass felt under her body, barely tickling the skin beneath her paws, the way the air rushed around them, she could hear the leaves as they moved together against each other and Rachel's breathing next to her, soothing her. She tried to focus on the sound in order to stay calm and still. Even in the dark, she could detect birds passing from one tree to the other, bugs climbing plants or flying around her.

She didn't know how much time they spent there, but it was Rachel who detected the noise first. It was a rumbling of leaves that came from afar, something running against the wind. They were standing and running to the line of trees in a second, listening intently to the movements. Quinn wasn't able to hold it in much longer, and once she figured the path the animal was sure to take, she sprinted forward, Rachel a hair behind her. The animal never had a chance.

* * *

><p>Rachel jumped from the grass and flew to press her back against a tree. If the throbbing between her legs was any indication, she had to get away from Quinn's naked body as fast as she could. The wood digging against her back and scratching her skin every time she exhaled a panting breath was oddly soothing; if only, the pain served as a distraction from her friend lying on the grass, wheezing and looking straight to the sky. <em>God, could she at least close her legs?<em>

Rachel grimaced and bit her lip, using all of her willpower to look away. It would take just a second for her hand to travel down her body, for her legs to jump on top of Quinn and cover her body, just inches away from her warm, soft skin. Rachel hit her back against the tree and covered her face with her hands.

"A shirt!" Quinn screamed suddenly, and Rachel uncovered her face to see a naked Quinn running through the trees.

"Oh, God. Please, please, please…" She whispered. "I'm going to the bag!" She screamed at the blonde's general direction, voice a little raspy. Her legs were shaky as she walked away, one arm around her chest and the other around her stomach.

She was tying her shoelaces when she saw Quinn approaching, a long t-shit covering her mid-thigh. Her breath hitched at the skin visible, and she ducked her head, hair blissfully obstructing her vision of the blonde next to her, putting clothes on.

"If it has to come down to hunting or killing sheep, I think I prefer the latter." Rachel commented as they walked to the bus stop. She had to break the silence.

"Isn't it a little hypocrite?"

"It's not a matter of _them_; it's a matter of _us._" Quinn shrugged. "Something could go wrong, what if we come across something bigger? Or something with _friends_?"

"Okay, you're right."

"I still think we ought to control ourselves not to kill, but if it comes down to one thing or the other, I'll go with safe choice."

Quinn nodded.

The rest of the walk was silent, and Rachel was already preparing herself for the pain of being alone, like every day lately, but Quinn grabbed her hand to keep her from getting off on her stop.

"Hungry or sleepy?" The blonde asked as they stepped into her house.

Rachel bit her lip. The truth was neither; it was something else, a new third choice she would have to take care on her own. But if she had to choose…

"Sleepy."

Once they were huddled under the covers, as close as they could be with their arms and legs around each other, Rachel knew her choice was the right one.

It was as close as she would ever get.


	12. Untitled 11

_Chapter Eleven._

Glee was a difficult affair as Quinn had to endure two and a half weeks of Rachel and Finn rehearsing a duet that had potential for the competition. Mr. Schuester had finally managed to get a tentative set list with enough time to be practiced and perfected, and it seemed as if they had all it took to win this year. But it was extremely hard to concentrate on singing and dancing and simultaneously trying not to send murderous glares to Finn, while he constantly touched Rachel and grabbed her by the wrist and waist. Objectively, Quinn knew it was all part of the choreography, but her mind couldn't be objective. It could only be possessive and jealous.

Quinn tried not to let it show, tried to act normal around Rachel and tried not to act like she wanted to bite Finn's jugular, but it proved to be a difficult task. A part of her believed it was a little of something else besides herself that felt possessive over Rachel, but she tried not to blame everything that happened and everything she felt on her condition, even if it felt like it had part of the fault.

Rachel eyed her suspiciously a couple of times, and Quinn felt the urge to look away, as if the brunette could read her mind. She realized after every time that it only made her look guiltier of whatever was going through Rachel's mind.

* * *

><p>Mr. Schuester decided on that class that only Rachel and Finn would practice. Everyone had to sit on the risers while he pointed out things he claimed couldn't notice when he had to watch everyone else as well.<p>

Quinn sat on the front row, Santana on one side and an empty chair on the other, where Rachel should be if she weren't parading around the room with Finn. The blonde felt a normal kind of headache coming from watching them perform the same song for the third time in a row. Finn looked a little tired as well, whilst Rachel kept her show face on perfectly. No one else was paying attention since the beginning of rehearsal, but Quinn couldn't look away. She could practically see the cartoon version of herself blowing smoke out of her ears and shooting darts at Finn's stupid face.

"I believe that's enough for today, Mr. Schuester." Rachel stated with her hands on her hips, before giving him a curt nod and walking straight out of the room.

"Whoa –"He didn't even try to finish the sentence as everyone stood up and started walking out of the room. Then there was only him and Quinn gaping at the door where Rachel had walked out from.

Mr. Schuester cleared his throat.

"Right… uh, tell Rachel we'll have to rehearse that again on the next meeting."

Quinn only nodded absentmindedly while she shouldered her bag and walked out of the Choir room, in search for Rachel. But she wasn't hard to find, standing against the blonde's locker with a scowl and her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"Do you want Finn again?"

"Are you still in love with him?"

"Of course not!"

"You're the one that wants him!"

They both stood perplexed, looking at each other with their arms helplessly hanging at their sides.

"Okay…" Rachel began. "No, I'm not in love with him, and no, I don't want him. I thought you…"

"But you where… the way you looked at each other… and why would I want him?" Quinn scrunched up her nose in disgust.

Rachel shrugged.

"It's part of the performance, Quinn. I have to look like he's the light of my life, the prince that I always dreamed o –"

"Okay! I get it, fine."

"Why… are you so upset, then? If you don't want to be with him…"

Quinn ignored the mad beating of her heart and the heat rising to her cheeks. She tried to ignore the almost physical pain of lying to Rachel and took a deep breath before answering.

"I just don't want you to get hurt. And he isn't good enough for you." _No one is. _So it wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the complete truth either. How could she say that she was jealous and she wanted her _friend_ all to herself?

She couldn't.

Rachel smiled, and for a second, by the look in her eyes, Quinn thought she didn't believe her. But then Rachel stood up on her toes, with the help of her right palm against the lockers, and placed a soft, tingling kiss against Quinn's cheek, right below her cheekbone.

"Thank you." She said softly. "I can't promise you I won't ever be hurt, but it's incredible to know you care. You know I feel the same for you, right?"

Rachel smiled; she really had no idea what those words really meant for Quinn, she had no idea that she was unconsciously lying, but Quinn smiled back with the knowledge that, even if Rachel would never love her as much as she loved Rachel, she had all the love Rachel was able to give to her. And even if it hurt, everything Rachel had, and everything she gave, was precious, and good enough.

* * *

><p>Rachel breathed in deeply through her nose and tried to calm the maddening beating of her heart against her chest, beating so strongly she felt it could wake Quinn up. It was an uncharacteristically warm night, but the blankets were almost up to her neck and the heat emanating from her friend's body was making her sweat slightly. Rachel tried to think about Glee, school, her dog, <em>anything<em> to distract herself from the feeling of the length of Quinn's body pressed up against her. She could feel the blonde's knees molded to the back of her thighs, her pelvis against her ass and Quinn's breasts pressed against her back. Rachel's hands tingled from being kept still by sheer will power, and the warmth of Quinn's breath against her neck made her mouth dry. The room was too dark, too cold outside the bed and too hot inside the covers; and her body nearly hummed from the energy that being so close to Quinn gave her and she wasn't using. The blonde shifted almost unperceptively, but Rachel could feel everything, hear every exhale and little whimper, and she wanted to tear her brains off. She wanted to move her head and kiss Quinn –everywhere she could reach. She wanted to reach back and run her hands all over, hug her tightly and stroke her hair and her skin and crawl inside her bones. But all she could do was clench her legs and bit her lip and beg for sleep to come and take her away from the torture. Eventually, though, the only solution was to take a deep breath full of Quinn's perfume, go to the bathroom to press her forehead against the cold linoleum wall and slip a hand inside her underwear.

When she came back, sedated but embarrassed, Quinn was a curled figure on Rachel's side of the bed, hugging Rachel's pillow to her chest. It made the brunette's heart skip a beat, out of love, and it also made her feel incredibly guilty about what she'd just done. She contemplated going to sleep downstairs on the couch, but the frown on Quinn's sleeping face was stronger than her will.

"Hey, Quinn…" She whispered next to the blonde's face, tracing her cheek with her index finger when the blonde didn't respond. "You're on my side, honey. Scoot over." The frown banished from her friend's face as she sighed in her sleep. Rachel was fully tempted to press her lips against Quinn's, just barely, just to see what it felt like. Quinn wouldn't find out…

"Where'd y'go?" She mumbled sleepily.

Rachel bit her lip and looked up before answering.

"Bathroom."

Quinn nodded and moved back, allowing Rachel to climb in bed next to her. A second later, she burrowed under the covers with a shiver and Rachel tensed when she felt arms around her waist and Quinn's face hiding against her stomach. She took a deep, deep breath, forcing herself not to be aroused and instead feel the flutter in her chest that loved proximity and hugs and Quinn's warmth. It worked after a moment, and Rachel moved under the covers as well, sighing contently as she treaded her fingers softly in blonde hair.

* * *

><p>"Do you really promise we're going to try?"<p>

"I swear, Rach. I already told you like, ten times."

"Just seven." Rachel shrugged meekly while Quinn rolled her eyes, not taking her eyes out of the road. "Hey, turn there!"

"Shi –shoot."

"We're going to be late!"

"She can wait five minutes."

"Quinn! is rude to keep people waiting, even if it's your Mom."

"Okay, okay…"

"But don't speed, you're going fast enough!"

"Stop telling me how to drive, it's distracting!"

"I'm sorry." Rachel smiled widely, showing her perfect row of teeth to Quinn.

"Oh, God." Quinn laughed, trying to keep her eyes on the road, which Rachel made incredibly hard by being so cute and pretty. "That's scary, stop it!"

"Aren't I beautiful enough for you?" Rachel faked-whined, tilting her head to the side and opening her eyes wide while keeping her scary smile.

"No when you put that face, you're not." Quinn grinned.

"Well, you're quite hard on the eyes yourself." The brunette rebutted with a raised eyebrow.

"Bitch."

"Language!"

Quinn parked the car and looked to the door where her mom was supposed to be waiting.

"You're pretty." Rachel said softly.

"I know."

The brunette rolled her eyes.

"Tell me an eighth time?" She asked bashfully.

"I promise to try my best not to hunt animals next week." Quinn repeated, a little annoyed; but then she saw Rachel's expression and her features softened. "Hey, I mean it." She took the brunette's hands between her own. "I'm scared for you too. I don't want you to ever get hurt, okay?" She lowered her head to meet Rachel's eyes.

"I know." Rachel straightened herself and smiled wide. She quickly reached for one of Quinn's cheeks to rest her palm on while she kissed the other. "I'll go to the back seat, your mom's coming."

Quinn was quiet during dinner, thoughtful. Rachel and her mother carried the conversation by themselves perfectly fine, which always amused Quinn, but today it gave her a different kind of feeling, a certain flutter she'd never felt before in her chest. Whatever it was, it was _good_ and it made her feel light and like everything smelled amazing.

This was her life, and it was finally good. Her mother was going to AA meetings every week, and it became sort of a ritual for them to pick her up and have lunch after, and it so happened to involve Rachel most of the times. School was going great, it was liberating to finally have peace there, without giving in to pressure and status and petty high school drama, she had Glee and Rachel and she wished she could go back in time and tell the scared, lonely girl she was as a freshman that everything was going to finally be _okay_ in time for senior year. She'd finally found something she loved and was amazing at, skating made her feel good, inside and out. And sure, all it took was a terrible accident and a life-long supernatural condition for her to realize what she needed, to get the _courage_ to get what she needed, and a part of her always knew Rachel would be the one to help her push through her walls and be okay again. And maybe that's why she was so scared of letting her in, once upon a time; that, and the feelings she never wanted to acknowledge but were always there, in the back of her mind every time she fought with Rachel or heard her sing. Rachel was the most incredible thing in her life. She was her best friend, she kept her grounded, made her happy, helped her through every full moon night and made her feel alive. That's why she was scared of losing her. She was terrified. And if the only thing that kept her life from being perfect was to have Rachel as a friend and not as something more, so be it. Her life had been a mess for a long, long time; for as long as she could remember. She could be content with how it was now.

* * *

><p>The whooshing of the air hitting against her fur as she ran was as exhilarating as the smells around her everywhere she went. Quinn wasn't sure what had changed, but everything smelled that much better. Perhaps it was the wind or changes in its direction, because it suddenly smelled different, richer. Once her running stopped and she took some time to breathe properly, she could hear the river flowing a couple of miles away, hear the birds as they flew high above the trees, and the distinctive sound of paws hitting the ground, running straight at her. Her wolf's smell kept getting stronger by the second as she approached and finally jumped and landed next to her, hitting her ribs with her head and knocking her to the ground. A bark left her throat before she could stop it, followed by a whine as Rachel delivered a generous lick to the side of her muzzle. Quinn was startled by the smell her wolf emitted, stronger and sweeter, and the way her whining sounded. She trained her hears as she looked up at the wolf's dark haired face, the way her eyes pierced right through her, even as a wolf. But Rachel whined again, and Quinn remembered to deliver the well-deserved lick to the face before jumping up and knocking Rachel to the ground. They growled a little, low in their throats, as they kept rolling around and jumping to knock each other to the ground. Quinn knew instantly that there would be no hunting this time, but that didn't stop her from licking up Rachel's face and letting out a playful bark.<p> 


	13. Untitled 12

As a sort of apology for the last chapter being a little shorter than usual, here's a new chapter a little longer than usual.

One of my favorites so far.

* * *

><p><em>Chapter twelve.<em>

Rachel woke up and immediately jumped from the ground at the sound of the river. It seemed as if she was right next to it, or floating in it, but when she took in her surroundings, she couldn't even _see it_. The birds where chirping too loudly, the bugs buzzing madly, and her heart was pounding in her ears. When she called out to Quinn, the loud sound of her voice made her wince. Walking through the trees, she could hear the crushing of the leaves she stepped on and the little animals running around or climbing trees that she couldn't see. Once she got to the bag, climbing on the tree to get it was an easy affair, even with her hands and legs shaking; but she realized, once she heard the _thump_ when it landed on the floor, that her hearing was sharp –extremely sharp. Rachel was putting on her sweatpants when Quinn arrived, with only her bottom underwear and both hands covering her ears and a permanent grimace on her face. Rachel immediately dug in the bag for a shirt and handed it to Quinn, mindful to look elsewhere while her friend was topless.

"What's going on?" Quinn whispered, but Rachel heard her just fine from her spot against a tree. For the first time in a long time, she had no idea. So she shrugged. "Everything's so _loud_." Rachel nodded. "We should go; I think we'll need some cotton for our ears."

Once they were at Rachel's house, they went up to her room, closed the binds, windows and curtains and breathed a sigh of relief.

"I thought we were done with the changes." Quinn whispered, lying down on the brunette's bed. "Everything sounded so… clean last night." Rachel just nodded. "Are you ever going to speak?" Quinn's irritation leaked and so she took a deep breath, closing her eyes. "Sorry."

Rachel moved to her bed and sat down next to the blonde, running a hand through her hair and down her cheek. If she stayed still, in the quiet, she could hear Quinn's breathing and heartbeat. It was amazing, and the more seconds went by, the better she heard it. Clear, like a normal volume of sound.

"Keep quiet…" She whispered. "And you'll start getting used to it."

Rachel lay down and rested her head on Quinn's shoulder. For a few minutes, there was silence and the noises she normally heard as a background or didn't even notice, like people talking while they walked past her front door, the TV from the house next door, a car driving by, Quinn's breathing, Quinn's heartbeat, Quinn's sigh…

"You're so much better at this." Quinn didn't whisper, but Rachel's ears didn't hurt from the volume anymore.

"What do you mean?"

"You always find what to do, how to act with this thing. And it's surprisingly… liberating."

Rachel turned to her side, propping her head on her elbow, and settled her left hand right in the middle of Quinn's chest. Now she could hear and feel her heart.

"It's nice to know that I don't have to keep my guard up all the time, but sometimes I feel like I depend on you too much, and it scares me." Quinn didn't open her eyes while she spoke, but Rachel could see the emotions written on her face. "If you feel sometimes that I pull away, don't think you've done something wrong. It's… just because… because you're too perfect."

Rachel didn't know what to say to _that_.

* * *

><p>Listening to the Glee Club sing wasn't the hardest thing to do, it actually felt great because, <em>damn <em>they could sing. Rachel was even more aware now of their flaws, which made the screaming matches that followed a little harder to bear. It was like Glee two years ago all over again, except everyone was able to calm down quickly and no one made Rachel feel like crap just because.

Quinn sometimes found herself a little dizzy from the noise in the hallways, seeking refuge in the soundproofed bliss of the auditorium, which more often than not was already occupied with Rachel. They sat there, in the quiet, sometimes next to each other and sometimes in completely opposite ends of the seats. Quinn was thankful that Rachel was someone who she could be in silence with, without needing to speak and not being awkward or boring. People thought Rachel spoke a lot, which was true, but almost no one knew that sometimes she could be extremely quiet, too. Quinn knew the difference between quiet Rachel and upset-quiet Rachel. Thankfully the latter wasn't too recurrent.

After the first week, they could be in the crowded halls without wincing and they didn't jump when someone near them spoke a little too loudly. And their balance returned just in time before Rachel started pulling her hair out because she couldn't practice for ballet. Most of their time the following weeks was spent in the ballet studio –Quinn watching Rachel and her classmates rehearse over and over again. Rachel missed almost all her skating classes, but Quinn wasn't upset because she knew how hard the brunette was practicing, specially her role as Titania in her number of Midsummer Night's Dream, the finale of her recital.

All in all, by the third week, the only thing that bothered them was not being able to ignore Kurt and Mercedes gossiping in Glee, especially when it was about them; or Santana and Brittany whispering blush-inducing things to each other during lunch when they thought they weren't paying attention.

Rachel wished she never heard some of the things they said to each other, because they wouldn't leave her head at night, and she really, _really_ didn't want to imagine those things about Quinn. It mortified her, and ashamed her when she looked at her friend smiling softly at her when they slept over.

* * *

><p>Quinn sat motionless on the back seat of the Berry car, the two Mr. Berrys on the front and Rachel next to her, a huge bag in between them, muttering to herself and checking mental lists with her fingers. Quinn knew better than to speak, <em>everyone<em> knew better than to make a noise, because Rachel had been running around in hysterics for the past two days and today, a dreading sense of peace had washed over her, and everyone was afraid of ruining it.

For the past two days, Rachel had been preparing her bag over and over, folding and unfolding her costume, stretching and warming up and doing pirouettes and pliés and muttering about adagios and doing unstoppable fouettés and things even Quinn didn't understand. She had sat primly on the brunette's desk doing homework while Rachel screamed to her dads from the top of the stairs about ticket reservations and schedules and running around the house like a mad woman. But finally, on the actual day of her recital, the brunette was calm, peaceful and polite. It was like the calm before the storm, and Quinn was not ashamed to admit she was frightened. Yes, she was friends with Santana, she had tutored Finn in math and had two years of cheerleading practice with coach Sylvester; she had even given _birth_, and yet Rachel was a terrifying little monkey. Cute, sure, but terrifying. And the only thing stopping her from slapping Rachel all those previous days or shaking her today just to get a non-creepy reaction out of her were those pretty little outfits the brunette wore for practicing: tight tank-tops and sweatpants, leotards and tights.

Once they got into the theatre, Rachel hugged them quickly before running to the dressing rooms, and Quinn waved at the girls she knew as they passed by them, all with matching panicking expressions on their faces. Quinn took her seat right in the middle of the second row while people started coming, all the lights still on and workers finishing the stage. After ten minutes passed, and just when she was starting to think the lights would turn off at any second, her phone vibrated in her dress pocket with a message from Rachel –_"Please come back stage. ASAP" _

She hadn't finished pulling back the curtain behind her when a pair of slim, strong arms wrapped themselves around her neck and pulled tight.

"Ouch, Rachel! Hey, what's wrong?"

"I'm dying." The brunette muttered against her neck.

"No, you're not. What's going on?" Quinn ran her palms down Rachel's hair and back as her friend kept her vice grip on her neck, almost bending her back.

"I don't know why I'm so nervous; I wish my head would stop hurting. I think it's making it worse. Oh God, what if I pass out from the effort? What if I change ahead of time from the pressure? I swear I can feel my temples pounding, stupid Mr. Schuester for taking us on that stupid trip! Stupid werew–"

Quinn wasn't sure how she caught all that mumbling against her neck, but she did, and Rachel wasn't making any sense.

"Slow down! Why are you so nervous? You've been practicing for months, I've seen you. You've got all the moves down." The blonde whispered against Rachel's ear.

"You think so?"

"I've never seen anyone more graceful." Quinn smiled.

"Don't lie to me, I've seen Brittany dance."

Rachel's voice seemed calmer and Quinn chuckled, relieved it was almost over. But then…

"Three minutes, everyone!"

"Oh God, no!" Rachel cried.

Quinn wrapped her arms firmly around Rachel's waist, pulling her up above the ground.

"Trust me, you're gonna be _fine_ babe."

The blonde tensed at the traitorous nickname, but Rachel pulled away and smiled widely.

"Okay." She bit the corner of her top lip. "I believe you."

Quinn hurried down the stage steps and to her seat next to Leroy, and then proceeded to be in awe for the next two hours.

Once Rachel finished laughing and jumping with the other ballerinas, she ran to her Daddy's arms and he picked her up and spun her around, then her Dad almost crushed her with a hug. Rachel turned to Quinn, who was standing a few feet away, watching her with an expression the brunette couldn't really put a name on and her hands behind her back. She bit her lip as she slowly walked towards the blonde, and before she could put her arms around her, Quinn produced a little bouquet of flowers from behind her back.

"I know you don't like dead flowers…" Quinn began while Rachel took them. "So I got those for you."

Rachel traced her fingers down a petal of the silk roses, her heart pounding in her chest, wanting to come out of her throat or maybe from all her pores.

When almost an entire minute passed and Rachel didn't say anything, Quinn started panicking a little.

"It's not real silk either… I-I know it's not vegan s–"An armful of Rachel Berry stopped her words. The brunette was pressed up against her in every single place from their knees up. Quinn watched Hiram chuckle before she buried her nose in her friend's hair and wrapped her arms around her.

"I love you." Rachel blurted against her ear. Quinn's breath catched in her throat. "You're the best friend I've ever had." Of course. Quinn smiled softly anyway, moving her head a little to kiss Rachel's cheek. "I love them, they're gorgeous."

"I'm glad you liked them." Quinn pulled away softly and grabbed Rachel's hand. Rachel's dads were waiting for them at the front door with Rachel's bag and they walked towards the car to go to dinner.

Once they were at the Chinese restaurant, Rachel proceeded to tell them all about the backstage gossip and costume drama and she didn't stop talking for the three hours they were there.

Quinn liked Rachel when they were quiet together, but hearing her speak non-stop about something she loved was the most amazing thing. It was like she could almost feel everything Rachel felt about the things she was passionate about. She could see the glimmer in her eyes, the way the corners of her mouth were always a little up in a small smile, making the corners of her eyes smile too. And she knew Rachel's dads loved it too, if the smiles they kept during the duration of dinner were any indication.

"Are you going to help Mr. Linton with the sheep next week?" Hiram asked them while they were driving back to the Berry home.

Rachel limited herself to a nod. They always tried to talk as little as possible about the alibi they used for their monthly disappearances for an entire day. Mr. Linton had his own supply of food and water and never went to the town if he could help it, so no one would have a chance to ask him about Quinn and Rachel unless they drove to his house, which the girls made sure never happened. Three months ago he'd been on the news, and what he said had worried both of the girl's parents after what had happened last year.

"Has he caught that animal that was attacking his farm a few months ago? Because if he didn't, I really don't think you should be going…"

"Dad, its broad day light; nothing's going to attack us." Rachel faked indifference like a true performer, and her father sighed.

"I guess you're right, but you have to be careful."

"Yes, we promise."

* * *

><p>The night was beautiful. The Moon light shone on the top of the trees and on the water flowing down the river. Rachel waited patiently for her wolf in the middle of the clearing, next to the trees, almost forgetting by now that that was the exact same spot where they were attacked. It was in the back of her mind, but she thought nothing of it. Didn't think it could possibly mean something. The now familiar noises around her kept her alert, but the distinctive sound of paws hitting the grass was non-existent. She waited approximately an hour before succumbing to worry and impatience and running in search of her wolf. Perhaps Quinn wouldn't have been over-enthusiastic if Rachel hadn't found her running and ran along with her instead of stopping for greetings. The wind brought along a delicious yet familiar smell to their location. Rachel immediately stopped, but Quinn didn't. The dark wolf emitted a long growl, signaling for her wolf to stop –but she didn't. Rachel's hairs stood on end all along her spine, and she sprinted, catching up to Quinn in a matter of seconds. She growled again while they ran, and the only answer she got was a whine from the back of her wolf's throat, signaling that she was <em>starved<em>. But Rachel was having none of it. As they ran along Mr. Linton's shed, she stopped and let out a terrifying growl, and Quinn stopped abruptly, turned around, and growled right back. Rachel's ears flattened to her head as she bore her teeth, but the dark gold wolf growled once again before turning around and disappearing along the side of the building. For a few minutes, Rachel stood on her spot, ears strained to Quinn's movements; she heard her jumping the fence, crouching down and jumping to attack. Then, the sound of a heavy body hitting the ground as the sheep fell to the grass, whimpering slightly before growing silent.

Rachel's muscles were hot and trembling, anger creeping up her spine and running through her veins. But then there was a noise, and a bang, and a whine as a body collided with the floor, and whatever was inside her veins ran cold. Her muscles prepared for jumping but her instinct told her not to appear from the same side Quinn did. She rounded the shed and poked her head to find her wolf lying on the ground, a trembling old man with a shotgun pointing at her, _at her wolf. _Her mind almost when blank with blinding rage as she leapt once, twice, before colliding with the man and sending him flying to the ground, unconscious. She reached Quinn in the second that followed, and was greeted with a whine as scared eyes looked up at her. Rachel whined right back, licking along her wolf's face and finding the wound to lick as well. She could hear the mad pounding of her wolf's heart, and it scared her. She sunk her teeth onto Quinn's neck and pulled her up. The golden wolf stood shakily on her legs for a few seconds before collapsing sideways into her wolf. Rachel whined, tugged softly on Quinn's ear with her teeth, and urged her to move along. She could smell the blood on her wolf's flesh, drying in her hair, sliding down her paw. They walked for a while, stopping every minute when Quinn slumped over Rachel and the black wolf helped her up by the neck. The road wasn't too far away from Mr. Linton's farm, but once they reached it, Quinn's raged breath stopped Rachel in her tracks. She whined, turning her face to lick up her wolf's face, but her eyes were closed and her body felt heavier as she slumped unconscious against Rachel.

The pounding of the black wolf's heart reached her ears and all her muscles tensed. Rachel could feel them heating, trembling, twitching, and for a second she thought she was having a seizure of some kind. Her brain almost felt like it was pounding, too, and she desperately tried to find the strength to concentrate on her wolf next to her, bleeding herself dry. A growl ripped itself from the very back of her throat, and her jaw clenched before she sunk her teeth onto Quinn's neck once more, pulled up and back, sending her flying on top of her body. Rachel's legs wobbled and bended from the weight, but she took a deep breath and stood up. Quinn's body slid to the right, almost falling, but Rachel caught her by the neck, right behind her ear, and bounced her two back legs, almost like a horse, while simultaneously shifting to the left. After a few tries and experimental moves, Rachel got Quinn's body to be right on top of hers, one front and one back leg on each side. Keeping her hold on that spot on her wolf's neck, Rachel began to walk slowly down the road, a feeling of dread creeping up her spine the more she got away from the forest and the faster she went as her body got used to the weight. It went against all of her wolf instincts to turn away from the safety of the trees, but it went against the root of her core to lose Quinn, so she gathered all her strength and fought back. And she won.

Once she got to the town, she was already running faster than she thought was possible. There was only one place on her mind, and she was running straight at it. Lima at night was dark and deserted. The good kind of people slept soundly and warm at their houses, and the bad kind of people hid in dark bars and corners of alleys. Rachel was happy, probably for the first time, that she lived in a small town.

The Pierce residence was grand and tall, it imposed on all the other houses on the street. As soon as she visualized it, Rachel's legs carried them faster still. Right next to the door, above the door bell, was a plaque that read: "Alexander Pierce –veterinarian." And a second one above it that read: "Daphne Jansen-Pierce –veterinarian."

Carefully, Rachel let go of Quinn's neck and moved her body to the right, causing her wolf to fall to the ground. After a lick to the face and another to her wound –answered by a week whimper from Quinn, Rachel stood on her back legs, one of her front paws pressing on the doorbell. It rang for an entire minute before she heard footsteps hurrying down the stairs, and so, with one last look at Quinn, Rachel ran to the back of the house and strained her ears.

The door opened, and after two seconds, she heard a scream in a language she didn't understand, she guessed Dutch, that sounded like Ms. Jansen-Pierce calling to her husband. Then there was a distinctive sound of someone dragging something very heavy, and the door closed after a minute. Rachel ran to the window once she saw a light on, and found it was the hallway that led to the veterinary clinic. Seconds later, a blur of two people in their pajamas carrying a stretcher with an injured wolf crossed the window before disappearing. Rachel let out a minute-long howl.

* * *

><p>It was the first and only time Rachel didn't pass out when she changed back into her human form. The pain on every single nerve ending of her being, the pressing of her skull against her brain, didn't surpass the feeling of anxiety she felt for Quinn. She'd heard Brittany's parents mumbles at night while they operated Quinn, she heard them going back to bed, and they hadn't woken up yet. Once she was able to stand up, Rachel carefully opened the back door and slipped inside the kitchen. She went straight to the laundry room and put on a pair of Brittany's shorts and an old shirt she didn't think they would miss. Grabbing clothes for Quinn, she slowly made her way down the hallway, her heart pounding painfully inside her chest and on her ears. The door to the room Quinn was in was locked with a chain lock, and once she unlocked it and opened the door, she closed her eyes and slipped in, closing the door behind her, afraid of what she would find.<p>

The sight of Quinn, naked and fragile, curled up on herself, almost broke her heart. There was what looked like a slave chain on her left foot, and an awkward looking dog-halter hanging from her neck. For a second, Rachel thought she looked like some kind of creepy fetish fantasy. She went to the hook next to the door that held the keys, and then proceeded to fumble with all of them until she found the one that opened the chain around Quinn's foot. She was trying to take the halter quickly but softly when Quinn stirred and her eyes opened.

Rachel wasn't prepared for the shove that came next, and she fell to the ground. Quinn jumped back from the table and flattened herself against the opposite wall, eyes wide and chest heaving.

"Quinn, please don't be scared. Do you remember anything about what happened?" Rachel spoke from the ground, in the same position she had fallen. Quinn's eyes seemed to be wild still, as if she were still a wolf. But then her jaw clenched and unclenched, and her eyes filled with tears as her hand went to her ribs.

Her eyes were wide, innocent and full of tears, accompanied with a killer pout when she murmured _"Ouch."_

"Oh _baby_." Rachel scrambled to her feet and rushed to the blonde, softly wrapping her arms around her naked form, just as she started shivering. She pressed one, two, three, four kisses to Quinn's cheek. "You scared me so much." She mumbled. "Please put these clothes on and let's go, before anyone wakes up."

Once they sneaked quietly out of the house, they walked the five blocks to Quinn's house in silence under the pink sky, the blonde with one arm around Rachel's shoulders, leaning against her. The pavement under their bare feet was cold and oddly soothing, and the wind was gentle as it lightly blew their tussled hair. From the outside, they probably looked like two drunken teenagers coming home from a party, if the dark patches under their eyes were any indication.

Quinn's mom was home, sleeping soundly in her bed, but they still climbed the stairs slowly and quietly to Quinn's room. Rachel didn't let go of the blonde until she sat her on the bed and gently pulled her down by the shoulders until her back was resting against the mattress. Then she kneeled next to her and pushed her shirt up, exposing her injury. She wasn't entirely surprised to find it closed, a thick, violet line surrounded by purple.

"It doesn't hurt." Quinn mumbled with a small voice. "Only if you touch it."

"I won't touch it." Rachel answered just as quietly, shaking her head a little.

"Rach?" The brunette looked up to Quinn's face. "Can we sleep now?"

They kept Brittany's clothes for sleeping. Quinn arched her back and then lifted her hips as Rachel drew back the covers, then fluffed Quinn's pillow and kissed her forehead. She got under the covers as well, sitting with her back against the headboard, but couldn't fall asleep. Quinn did after less than a minute, snuggling to Rachel and sighing. After a while of staring out of the window to try to keep herself distracted, Rachel finally tangled a hand on blonde hair and let her tears fall freely, releasing all of the dread and anxiety and just pure _terror_ she experienced that night.

Unexpectedly, Quinn raised her arm sleepily to touch her dampened cheek and shushed her.

"Don't cry, sweetie." She whispered in a harsh, sleepy voice.

Rachel bit her lip and nodded, trying to comply, but it only served to make her cry harder, hiccupping and sobbing. Quinn sat up slowly and wrapped her arms around Rachel's waist, and the brunette dragged her body between her legs by wrapping her arms around her neck. With Quinn's facer buried in her chest, Rachel hid her face in her blonde locks and inhaled. She needed to feel Quinn, to smell Quinn, hold her to know she was alright. Her friend seemed to understand, settling her body comfortably on Rachel's, snuggling to her and falling asleep once Rachel had stopped crying.

Rachel heard the noises Judy Fabray made as she woke up, took a shower, had breakfast and then left for work. She heard more noises as the neighbors around the Fabray house left their homes, started their cars and drove off. The sun got higher and higher in the sky as she watched it through the window. People walked down the street chatting and children played in their gardens and back yards. Mommies called them for lunch, then they played again, then mommies called them for a nap. The woman next door watched the news in a TV that was probably next to her kitchen window because Rachel heard it clearly.

The world went on, it was alive, and Quinn was sleeping quietly in her arms and against all of her. Rachel's mind became foggier, her eyes heavier, Quinn's warmth washed over her, until she finally fell asleep.


	14. Untitled 13

Have a look at what my friend Laura did: lrbcn [.] tumblr [.] com / post / 11298784999

Amazing. Although I think most of you already saw it, I hope you like it as much as I did and reblog it for her if you'd like!

* * *

><p><em>Chapter thirteen.<em>

Darkness engulfed the entire room when she opened her eyes. The first thing Quinn noticed was Rachel's stomach below her head, her warm body around her arms, and the brunette's arms wrapped around her shoulders. Rachel had slid down the bed sometime after she fell asleep, and Quinn had slid along with her. One of Rachel's legs was over both of Quinn's, which were a lot numb. The blonde fought the urge to groan when the pain in her legs made it impossible for her to keep the position any longer and she had to move. She almost felt like crying for not having more time to consciously enjoy it. Slowly raising her body above Rachel's with her arms, Quinn came face to face with the frown between the brunette's eyes. She didn't know if it was because of whatever her friend was dreaming or if it was because she'd moved.

"Sorry, Rach." She mumbled, lifting her hips and moving away from the warmth. The involuntary pout would have made her blush if Rachel had seen it blossom, but she was too preoccupied with grabbing a fistful of blanket and hugging it to her body. Quinn smiled, too sleepy and too charmed to stop herself from leaning towards her friend and kissing her cheek. Rachel's dreamy, sighed _'Quinn'_ sent crows to bat away in her stomach.

Feeling drained but unable to sleep, Quinn left the bed to stand in front of her full length mirror. There was little light coming in from the window, but Quinn's improved sight was enough for her to lift her shirt –after checking that Rachel was asleep– and inspect her wound. It was mostly a huge patch of purple skin, a thick, short line for a scar from where the bullet had entered.

Quinn sighed.

She'd been a little edgy the last week before the transformation; the headaches had hurt a lot more, she'd been in a sour mood, and Rachel had been in pain as well, which hadn't served to keep her in control. That night she'd been hungry, and running with Rachel had sent a thrill to every nerve end in her body. Still, it wasn't an excuse. Sometimes she hated how much more in control Rachel was, how everything seemed to come almost as second nature to her. It wasn't anger against the brunette, but against herself. Quinn didn't know if it was chance, or if there was something wrong with her. She knew that, even if it didn't seem like it, she was the weakest of them, the most broken, she was more lost and less stable. Quinn could admit, at least to herself and perhaps to Rachel to some extent, that she was vulnerable; that everything that'd happened to her during her life had left a permanent mark unable to erase, a scar within her she didn't think it could heal. While Rachel, though of course hurt, had always put up a brave front and had taken the insults and slushies to her advantage, using every negative thing to make her stronger. She knew she would have lost herself if it wasn't for Rachel's support, that had helped her start to find herself, taking little but confident steps. Being a werewolf gave her an even bigger emotional instability, perhaps because emotions felt stronger, like a raw version of what she used to feel. That's why she was angrier when she was angry, happier when she was happy, more in love than she mistakenly thought she was before. Watching Rachel sleep made her feel all of those emotions; love, happiness, but also anger. Anger at herself, because she'd put Rachel in a dangerous situation that could have ended a lot worse. Rachel could have been shot or discovered as a wolf, all because of Quinn's inability to control herself and her stupid impulses, all because she had protected her, Rachel could have ended up hurt.

Quinn made a decision.

* * *

><p>The story about the mysterious bullet-wounded wolf was in the morning news on Thursday.<p>

Mr. Pierce was telling the story about how his doorbell rang mysteriously in the middle of the night and his wife had found the injured wolf on their doorstep. He said no one was around and there were no signs of how it got there. He described it as a dark-blonde female wolf with a bullet lodged in its rib area, with two broken ribs and a serious bleeding. He and his wife had taken care of it by taking out the bullet and applying stitches, but when they woke up in the morning, it had vanished into thin air. Inside a little bag he had the bullet, physical proof that they hadn't gone mad.

Rachel and Quinn were having breakfast with Hiram when they saw the news. He went stiff as he listened to the story intently, while Quinn stuffed as much toast as it fit inside her mouth and Rachel looked at the verge of tears. The blonde's right foot hooked around one of Rachel's. Once the story was over, they felt Hiram's gaze on them.

"Girls, I'm sure it's not the same –"

"We don't think that, Mr. Berry." Quinn said a little too brightly. "Maybe it was just a big dog or –"

"Or maybe they have a gas fluke." Rachel chimed in, almost covering her entire face with her mug of tea as she drank it. Quinn raised her eyebrows at her incredulously.

"Er – well…" Hiram seemed a little confused, a little like he wasn't sure if he believed them. "Still, it's nothing you should worry about."

"We don't." Quinn answered with a smile when she saw Rachel still hadn't got a grip on her tears.

Once he left the kitchen, Rachel hid her face in her hands.

"Come on, Rach." Quinn placed her hand on the brunette's back, rubbing soothing wide circles. "I'm okay now, it barely hurts." Rachel mumbled helplessly against her hands. "Didn't catch that, sweetie." Quinn said comfortingly, a side smile on her face.

Rachel lifted her head abruptly and looked at her. Her expression was as broken as Quinn had ever seen her, red puffy eyes that shone with tears and tear tracks on her cheeks, both fresh and slightly dry. Her lips quivered and her brow was furrowed. Quinn could've kissed her.

"I thought I'd lost you! You were bleeding and whimpering and you were so –so _helpless. _I don't know how I got the strength to carry you all the way to Brittany's home, but all I could think about was h-how to get there f-fasted and –and –what would I _do_? I can't lose you, Quinn. I can't –"

Quinn regained her senses on that moment, ignoring the clutching in her heart that had her brain on a blank page. She stood up from the stool and wrapped Rachel in her arms. The brunette immediately rounded Quinn with her arms around her neck and her legs around her waist, sobbing.

"I'm so sorry, Rachel." Quinn whispered as close to the brunette's ear as she could get. Her heart was beating madly inside her chest and on her throat because she couldn't find any words to soothe her friend. It was all her fault; she had been the reckless one, letting her impulses take the lead when she knew it was the last thing she had to do as a wolf. "It was all my fault; I promise I'll make it better. But I'm okay now; I know it was scary, but it's over. Please –"

"Oh, Quinn." Rachel's raspy voice was muffled against the blonde's chest. "It wasn't your fault."

"But I went there, knowing that if I just stopped running for a second and think, I could control my –"

"But it wasn't even a dangerous situation." Rachel's voice was sweet and soft when she looked at Quinn in the eyes. "We've been there _lots_ of times, and… who knows? Maybe we would have gone there later, or next month… there's no telling what could have happened. It could have been me that –"

"Don't say that."

"But it's _true_. Don't blame yourself, really, you couldn't have known –"

"Okay. Okay, fine. Are you better now?" Quinn's hands moved to wipe away the tear tracks on Rachel's cheeks, making her smile.

"Yes, I'm better." Rachel wrapped her arms around the blonde's neck again and tightened her grip with her legs. "Now take me to my room so I can change."

Hiram's scream of: "Girls, don't climb the stairs like that!" was muffled by both of their giggles.

* * *

><p>Everyone was asking Brittany lots of questions at school, so many at the same time that she got quite confused in less than a minute. Santana tried to scare them away, but they were so curious they forgot they were supposed to be afraid of her. Yet, Brittany kept telling that she was asleep and saw nothing of what happened, and the only thing she knew was that the wolf must have been cold, because it took clothes from her laundry room. Needless to say, they got bored of that fantasy story really fast.<p>

And in less than two weeks, everyone had forgotten about it. Even the authorities.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure you're okay? Not dizzy or in pain?" Rachel whispered for the tenth time that day.<p>

"It's been three weeks, Rachel. I can barely _see_ the wound by now." That wasn't entirely true, the scar was clear almost right below her left breast. But it was that, just a scar; no more bruise or pain, and certainly nothing to fuss so much about.

"I'm sorry, it's just… you know." Rachel blushed.

"Stop worrying, I'm okay." Quinn assured her, resting a hand over one of Rachel's.

"Care to share something with the class, Ms. Fabray?" Mr. Martinez had his eyebrows raised at them, a science tube precariously dangling from his trembling right hand.

"Nothing." Quinn spat.

Some of their classmates rolled their eyes, so used to Rachel and Quinn being close it was no novelty anymore. Even if they still gossiped about them, they acted like they didn't care. Quinn hoped it was the truth, but she knew that Jewfro still stalked them around Lima at least once a week. She was contemplating punching his face, or having Puck throw him in the dumpsters a couple of times until he got that he had to back off. But it wouldn't be easy to dissuade him, the most comments he got on his blog were on the stories about them. Really, what was so interesting in Rachel and Quinn going to the park? They were fools, and while Quinn would've been pleased with the attention a couple of years ago, it just served to irritate her already fragile mood now.

"Are you even listening to me, Q?"

"Um, sorry… what?"

Santana made a face while Rachel shook her head, amused.

"If we have to get that assignment done, I vote for you to come to my place. I hate your houses, no offence."

"None taken." Quinn rolled her eyes sarcastically. She hadn't been paying attention to a word Santana said, and to anything that had happened on Glee.

Getting up from their seats, Quinn turned to Rachel to find her already walking out of the Choir room, both of their bags on her shoulder. Quinn stretched her arms as if to stop her, her bag was full of books she was taking home for homework, and she wasn't sure how the tiny brunette wasn't falling to the side.

"Looks like you got her trained good." Santana sniggered.

"Don't make comments like that." Quinn growled right in Santana's face before walking away to catch up with Rachel.

She took one of the bags from the brunette's shoulder and grabbed her hand while they walked.

"You haven't been paying attention." Rachel chided her with no real force.

"Sorry... got distracted."

"Are you sure it doesn't –"

"I'm sure, Rach." Quinn squeezed her hand, making the brunette smile.

"Get a room!" Some hockey guy yelled at them as they passed. It was one of his favorite hobbies, it seemed.

"Get a toothbrush!" Rachel yelled without turning around. Quinn sniggered. "We should give Santana a break once we're at her house." The brunette commented.

"Why? She's been a bitch just now before I left her."

"Brittany's mad at her." Rachel pursed her lips. "You know how they get; we'll have to stay away from them for a week once they make up."

"So let's get our revenge in advance and not give in to her stupid moods now!"

"No, Quinn." Rachel shook her head while she put both of their bags in the trunk of Quinn's car. "Be nice." She scolded with her finger pointing at the blonde's face, this time with force.

"Jesus, okay." She rolled her eyes.

"Hey Whipped, Streisand."

Rachel hugged Quinn's waist to keep her from answering and gently pushed her to the driver's door.

"We'll follow you, Santana."

The Latina rolled her eyes at her annoyance that Rachel wasn't playing her game.

"Whatever." She muttered, and headed towards her car.

"I swear I'm going to punch her today." Quinn growled once Rachel got in.

"She'll get tired when she sees we're not paying attention to her."

"Yeah, I'm not so sure."

The evening with Santana turned out to be a fiasco. Without Brittany, and with their fight putting their friend in a sour mood, there was no filter to the hoard of nastiness coming out from Santana's mouth. In the end, Quinn refused to put up with her any longer and fled the room, Rachel a few seconds after her, not before telling Santana that the assignment wasn't over.

"If this had happened a year ago, I would have clawed her eyes out." Quinn growled, hitting her back against her car. Rachel rested her hands on the blonde's arms, crossed against her chest.

"Calm down, take a deep breath. It's not such a big deal, Quinn."

"If she _ever_ calls you a name again I'll –"

"_I'll_ defend myself, okay?" Rachel lowered her head to meet hazel eyes with her own. Quinn nodded reluctantly, allowing the brunette to uncross her arms and wrapping them around her waist.

Quinn leaned forward, resting her head against Rachel's chest and feeling her heartbeat, trying to make her heart match the soothing sound of Rachel's own. She took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh when the brunette's hands ran down her hair to her back. She pulled back after a minute.

"Take you home?"

Rachel nodded and headed towards the passenger seat. With a scowl, Quinn opened her car door a little too forcefully and the plastic of the handle made a nasty noise, and then cracked. The blonde's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets as the stared at the piece of plastic with her finger's indentations.

"Look what I just did!" She shrieked at Rachel.

The brunette gasped as she stared at the handle Quinn passed to her, turning it in all directions.

"What did you _do_?" She asked in awe.

"I just… pulled." Quinn scowled. "A bit too forcefully, maybe. Damn, my mom's going to kill me."

"Here." Rachel handed it back. "Squeeze it as hard as you can."

Quinn did as she was told, but the handle stayed the same when she opened her hand.

"Did you just use a lot of force?" The brunette frowned as she stared at the plastic intently.

"I don't know, I was just… I'm just mad. You know, because of Santana." Except Quinn wasn't mad anymore, just confused and maybe a little freaked out.

Rachel nodded, as if Quinn's answer had been of any use.

"We'll just see." She said, and turned sideways to put on her seatbelt.

"It can't be a coincidence." Quinn broke the silence when they were almost at the Berry home. "It has to be related to our condition."

"If there's something I decided when I realized something was wrong with me, it was that I didn't believed in coincidences about this."

"There's nothing wrong with you." Quinn couldn't help but burst out.

"I know, Quinn." Rachel smiled. "But I don't think we can hurry this, you know. If it has something to do with our wolves, it'll happen again."

Quinn sighed.

"Okay." She reached back for Rachel's bag and handed it to her. "We'll go to Santana's after school tomorrow, then I'll take you to ballet if you'd like."

"I'd like that very much, thank you." Rachel grinned and leaned forwards to kiss Quinn's cheek. "See you in the morning, and don't forget about those vegan muffins you promised daddy for breakfast."

"I won't."

"And Quinn?" Rachel bent over to look at the blonde through the driver's window. "Please don't dwell on it, okay? It's no use. Whatever has to happen, it will at its own time."

* * *

><p>Quinn decided to follow Rachel's advice, but she still couldn't help over-analyzing the moment. What she'd been thinking, what she was feeling, what exactly were her movements… in the end, all she got was very little and bad sleep, which in turn made her really grumpy the next day, and no answers. It was even worse when she realized they had to go over to Santana's again after school, even for a little while because they had ballet. This day would turn out not to be good.<p>

"Please promise to be tolerant?" Rachel pleaded as they once again followed Santana back to her house. Quinn made a non-committed sound. "Put yourself in her place, if you were fighting with your boyfriend –"

Quinn felt a sting in her chest at those words.

"I don't _have_ a boyfriend, and if I had and we were fighting, I would _not_ take it out on my supposed _friends_!" Perhaps that could have been her in the past, but certainly not now.

Rachel sighed, but didn't answer. She knew, from that moment, that this day would not turn out good.

Santana sat on her dining room table with her arms crossed in front of her chest and an annoyed expression that matched Quinn's, although not as heartfelt as Rachel's.

"We can't work like this." She huffed. "If you're not willing to cooperate, perhaps we should arrange another meeting when we're –"

"Twice is enough for me." Santana grumbled. "Just pick a damn song, Smurfette, and –"

"Could you at least be _nice_ for a change?" Quinn nearly shouted as she stood up from her chair. "We're putting up with your stupid sh–"

"Quinn!" Rachel stood up and nearly ran to her side. Quinn's face was red and her hands balled into fists were trembling.

"I'm defending you, Rachel! I'm tired of her nicknames and her pathetic sulk–"

"I can defend myself, Quinn, although I appreciate the sentiment." Rachel stated calmly, somehow making herself heard through the blonde's loud outrage and resting a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Perhaps it's best if we go to the kitchen and get some water, yes?"

Quinn calmed down to a glare upon having physical contact with Rachel. She nodded curtly and turned around from a scowling Santana and retreated to the kitchen with a hand on the small of Rachel's back.

Rachel filled a glass with tap water and outstretched her hand to Quinn, but the blonde stood against the kitchen island with her arms crossed in front of her chest. The brunette sighed and sipped the water.

"Strong headaches today?"

"No." Quinn answered grumpily. She'd been avoiding that subject with Rachel all month, it seemed almost impossible to dodge it now, so close to the full moon.

"I've been having strong one's today, and it's only the second day, I don't know why they're so strong." She mumbled almost to herself. "Although last month's were particularly strong as well. Do you think it means something?"

Quinn was too busy, finding a way to tell Rachel what she'd been meaning to tell her all month and delaying because of fear, to respond. And her anger couldn't let her think properly.

"Quinn? Are you listening to me?"

"Sorry… What?"

"I said we have to watch each other this time and see if there's anything odd going on –"

"I'm not going with you." Quinn blurted. Her eyes immediately shut tight, _that was not the way she was planning to say it_.

"What?" Rachel seemed confused, but her voice had raised an octave, as if she did understand but hoped she heard wrong.

"Rachel…"

"What are you talking about, Quinn?"

The blonde sighed; it wasn't going to be easy.

"Look, I just think… I think I've fallen behind. I don't know… you're just… you know what you're doing, and I don't. That's why what happened last month happened. I think I need to find a way to keep myself under control before I expose you to that sort of thing again –"

"You're being ridi –"

"I'm not! I can't go out with you like that, so… so carelessly, and risking you to rescue me if I do something stupid again!"

"And you think being away from you it's going to be better?" Rachel seemed to be fighting hard to keep her voice down, anger and frustration fighting for dominance on her face. "You think I'll be relaxed and alert if you're not next to me? If I don't know where you are?"

"You'll be okay, you can just rest there –"

"Just rest there?" Rachel's face seemed to be contorted in a mixture of outrage and disbelief. "Just imagine for a second that I'm on the woods alone and you don't know where I am, or what I'm doing or if maybe I'm hurt and you… and you're just _resting there_."

Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn't need to imagine, the squeeze in her heart at the thought of it made it incredibly hard to breathe. This was raw human emotion and wolf instinct at the same time, clutching her heart in a vice grip.

"I just _know_ you'll be okay…" She said lowly, as if trying to convince herself as well.

"I don't care about me!" Rachel cried, and suddenly there was a sound of broken glass and water splashing against the floor. Rachel looked down in disbelief at the bits of broken glass in her palm, stained with blood. "Shit." She whispered, not caring about _language_ for the first time.

Quinn hurriedly gripped her wrist and took her to the sink, opening the water.

"What the fuck did you do?" Came Santana's voice from the kitchen door.

"She accidentally dropped the glass, Santana." Quinn lied solemnly, not turning around and batting Rachel's other hand away as she carefully extracted the glass from between the brunette's thumb and index finger. "Do you have bandages?"

"Yeah…"

She heard Santana leave and brought Rachel's hand under the water once more before carefully drying it with a cloth. Once the hand was properly bandaged, she turned to Santana.

"I think we should leave." She said dryly.

Santana nodded, still a little confused and perhaps a little sorry for her actions.

"Are we going to talk about this?" Rachel spoke to Quinn's profile as she drove.

"I'm not going to change my mind." Quinn said softly.

Rachel's sharp turn of her head to look through the window told Quinn she was right before. Definitely _not_ a good day.


	15. Untitled 14

_Chapter fourteen._

Quinn stood, her back against a tree, listening intently to the sounds of the woods. The wind was strong and it kept blowing her hair to her face, her trembling hands were cold and her heart pounded strongly inside her chest along with her head. It had been forty minutes, yet she refused to go without at least seeing Rachel. She knew the brunette probably wanted nothing to do with her right now, but after hearing her howling all night, it was impossible for Quinn not to be shaken. She had curled up under a tree, watching the animals scurry through the dark of the night and listening to any approaching pounding footsteps. And Rachel, not too far away from her, had howled until Quinn thought her ears would bleed. It had been the most difficult thing she'd ever done, more than restraining herself from hunting or from jumping her friend when they woke up after a hunt. She knew Rachel was okay, and that was the only thing that kept her from running to her as fast as she could. But still, she had been fighting against her most powerful instinct –protecting Rachel– every second of the night, and she didn't think she could do it again.

Finally, she heard Rachel's distinctive footsteps walking along the path to the road, just where she was waiting for her. The brunette's eyes widened when she saw her, something akin to relief as her shoulders sagged and her chest lowered with the force of her sigh. But a second later her eyes were hardening and she walked straight past Quinn and to the road. The blonde hadn't been expecting anything else, having been ignored since she dropped the brunette at ballet class after their last time at Santana's.

She decided to let the brunette take the bus alone, and instead began walking back to the clearing and curled up on the ground where she could still faintly smell Rachel's wolf scent. She had to apologize, and fast, because she couldn't take her friend's silence and she certainly couldn't stand another transformation alone.

* * *

><p>The problem was, Rachel wouldn't take her calls or answer her messages. Rachel wouldn't speak to her at school, didn't show at skating lessons that week, didn't call her to join a ballet lesson…<p>

Quinn didn't want to smother her, didn't want to invade the privacy of her home, because she knew Rachel wouldn't enjoy any of that. She didn't give up in calling her three times a day and texting various versions of a heartfelt apology every night, though. She ended every one of them with a _"Good night, Rachel." _Because she still wanted to be the last one saying goodnight to her.

"Okay, stop the pity party."

Quinn looked away from staring at Rachel's back in homeroom and looked up at Santana, standing in front of her with her hands on her hips.

"Did you get that stick out of your ass?"

"Yeah, sorry about that. How is her hand?"

Quinn merely shrugged. She didn't want to tell Santana she couldn't possibly know, because Rachel hadn't spoken to her in two weeks.

"Okay. How about a peace offering? You, me and BritBrit tonight at my house. Sounds good?"

"I don't know."

"Come on, you can do one night with us now you're not superglued to Rachel anymore." Santana huffed.

"So it's Rachel now?" Quinn retorted bitterly. She wasn't in the mood to deal with Santana, but she knew she'd go to her house anyway, it was better than to stay home alone watching personal favorites of Rachel's old MySpace videos.

Santana sighed.

"See you at eight."

* * *

><p>Rachel stood a block away from Brittany's home, dread creeping up her spine as the memories of two full moons' ago flooded through her mind. She didn't want to go in there, didn't want to see the window in which she'd sneaked in to wake Quinn, and didn't want to ring the doorbell her paw had ringed. She was strong set on pushing through her fear though, because that's just the way she was. Brittany had asked for help perfecting her part in their upcoming group song for Nationals, and Rachel never passed out on opportunities to help the other Glee club singers or give voice lessons. Besides, Kurt was on a date and Rachel had no one to hang out with. Brittany's request, though shocking, hadn't been bad received.<p>

Taking a deep breath, she rang the doorbell, and no less than a minute later, the door burst open and Rachel was mildly shocked when she saw Brittany grinning widely at her with a top hat on.

"Hi Rachel!" She exclaimed as she grabbed the brunette's hand and dragged her in.

"Hi Brittany." Rachel said politely.

She followed the blonde to the living room and sat on the couch, trying hard not to stare in the direction of the white hallway. She was half distracted when they started doing scales, but not even singing could keep her mind full off the thoughts of what had happened in the house before. Once they ran through Brittany's part of the song for the first time, Rachel couldn't help herself anymore. Maybe the blonde's crazy could keep her mind off of other things.

"Um… what are you wearing?"

The blonde furrowed her eyebrows, seemingly forgetting about her hat until she almost bowed her head to look at her clothes and gasped at the last second, holding the hat to her head.

"Oh! Wizard was just really cold and shivery."

Rachel was almost afraid to ask.

"What –who is… exactly… Wizard?"

Brittany giggled before carefully taking off her hat. On top of her head, curled up into a ball, was a tiny black kitten.

"He likes to sleep on my head." She stated.

Rachel snorted before releasing a loud belly laugh, holding her stomach with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. Never would she have expected _that._ She tried so hard to keep her laughter in that her chest hurt and her eyes watered, and in a second, without really knowing how it happened, Rachel was crying instead.

"Oh, don't cry, Rachel!" Brittany took the kitty out of her head carefully and placed him on the brunette's lap before wrapping her arms securely around her. "I didn't know you don't like kittens! I'm sorry I made you even more sad!"

Rachel hiccupped, whipping her face with the back of her hands.

"I'm sorry, Brit, I do like cats." She assured her. "What do you mean, sadder?"

"You were sad, and Quinn was sad, and since San told me she would take care of her I decided to invite you to my house to sing, because I know singing makes you happy. I'm sorry if Wizard ruined it."

Rachel smiled faintly, tracing the little cat's ears and nose with her index finger.

"He didn't, he's cute. Why did you name him that?"

"His white hair looks like moons. Like a wizard suit."

Rachel chuckled; on both sides of the kitten were two patches of white hair that indeed looked like quarter moons.

"Since singing isn't making you happy do you maybe want a ham sandwich?"

"No, thanks Brit. We could just watch TV."

Brittany immediately grabbed the remote and set the TV to Disney channel. Rachel smiled.

* * *

><p>"Santana, it's a school night." Quinn said for the tenth time that night as her friend made yet another screwdriver and handed it to Brittany.<p>

"Cheer up, Q-Q!" Brittany giggled as she dropped herself on Santana's lap.

Quinn grimaced at the nickname.

"Yeah, bitch, you could use a drink. Have fun with us!"

"I hate you." Quinn mumbled.

"Fuck you."

"Guys, don't fight! San, Q's just sad because she isn't with Rachel." Brittany patted her girlfriend on the head. "Quinn, Santana's just jealous that you're super close with Rachel now and you don't pay attention to her."

"Hey!" The Latina screamed indignantly.

Quinn just went bright red and grabbed the now warm screwdriver Santana made for her over an hour ago.

"Yeah, join the party!"

"I'm sorry you're jealous." Quinn slurred two hours and five screwdriver's later. She had wrapped her arms around Santana's neck from behind, the back of the couch between them, and was nearly chocking her friend. "It's just Rachel's very… um, she's got… you _know_. I really can't tell you, but you can see everything else, right?"

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

"Haven't you _seen_ her?" Quinn threw her hands up in the air and Santana sighed in relief. "She's just so… she's _so_…"

"She's hot." Brittany stated from her spot upside-down on the loveseat.

"Hey!" Quinn narrowed her eyes. "She's pretty, right S?"

"Whatever."

"Oh, don't be mad, you're pretty, too." Quinn grinned.

"So you're dumping your friends over a pretty chick?" Santana crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"She's smart, too! And she can sing, and dance, and she smiles… have you seen her smile?" Quinn seemed very somber all of the sudden. "I haven't in a while." She finished in a whisper. Santana slapped her hand on her face.

"She smiled with me today, Quinn!" Brittany said happily.

"She did?" Quinn tumbled over to her friend and kneeled in front of her head, resting both of her hands on Brittany's cheeks. "Was it small and pretty or big with the dimple? Man, I miss the dimple." She sighed. "I wish I could make her smile." Quinn pouted at Brittany, her eyes full of tears.

"Don't cry, Quinn!" The blonde said, alarmed. "Is it my perfume or something? I made Rachel cry today, too."

"You smell great, BritBrit."

But at hearing that Rachel had cried, Quinn had thrown herself to the floor on her back and covered her face with her hands, really crying.

"_Mierda_, Stupid vodka." Santana mumbled as she kneeled at the side of Quinn's head, Brittany joining her on the other side. "Don't cry, Quinn. I'll hit you if you do."

"San!" Brittany scolded her girlfriend as she patted her hand on Quinn's hair. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"I w-wish she c-could forgi-ive me!"

"Have you tried with flowers?" Brittany asked hopefully.

"Vegan non dead flowers are expensive!" Quinn wailed.

"What the –look Q, just sing her a song or something, that's what Finn always did –"

"I'm not Finn!" Quinn sat up abruptly, hitting her palms on the floor. "Maybe that's why she doesn't –why I'm not…"

"Tall and ugly?" Brittany suggested.

"Stupid and early arriving?" Santana added.

Quinn laughed a little through her sobs.

"No, I mean… it's just that I…"

"You're in loooooove with her." Brittany drawled, grinning.

"No!" Quinn sniffed. "Yes." She added softly, and started crying again.

* * *

><p>Rachel sleepily groped for her phone under her pillow and sheets. She had fallen asleep stupidly waiting for an apology slash goodnight text from Quinn that never came. She squinted at the bright screen with Santana's name on it.<p>

"Why on Earth are you calling me at three in the morning?" She grumbled.

"Hello to you too, Streisand." Santana muttered. "Look, you have to come, like, now."

"I'm not going to your house now, Santana. I'm sure it can wait for when the sun's out."

"Yeah, Quinn is drunk and hasn't stopped crying for over an hour and my head is really hurting and I might just slit her throat if you don't come here and shut her the hell up."

Rachel had gotten out of bed at the word _drunk _and was already down the stairs when Santana finished her sentence. Driving was a definite no with her mild state of unconsciousness, so she ran the blocks to Santana's house. Her feet felt as if they barely touched the pavement and the speed was blowing her hair back, making the cold night air wake her a little more. She was there in less than five minutes and Santana was already outside her door, a cigarette in her hand. Rachel wasn't out of breath when she stopped in front of her.

"She's upstairs with Brit, second door to the left."

Rachel nodded and entered the house, running up the stairs and stopping at the door. She heard a muffled voice talking and sniffs. Biting her lip, she turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door. Both girls looked up when she didn't make a sound.

Quinn's eyes were red and puffy; her cheeks entirely wet and slightly flushed like the tip of her nose. Her hair was disheveled on the sides, as if she'd been running her hands through it, and her expression turned alarmed when she saw the brunette.

"Rachel." She whispered so lowly that only they could hear. Her lower lip started trembling again.

"Don't cry _again_, Quinn." Brittany sounded devastated.

"It's okay, Brittany. Santana's outside, why don't you go with her?"

The blonde nodded and stood up, placing a soft kiss on top of Quinn's head before heading towards the door.

"Be nice." She warned Rachel before closing the door behind her.

"I'm sorry they called you." Quinn said quietly. "I swear I didn't tell them to."

Rachel moved to Santana's bed and sat down, looking at her hands.

"Rach, can I… talk? And maybe you'll listen?" The brunette nodded and Quinn sighed in relief. "I'm really sorry about what I did, but… but I needed it. I was _so_ scared of anything happening to you because of me. And it might have seemed pointless to you, but I felt like… like I needed to be more in control, and when I'm with you, it's amazing, and I feel like I make progress all the time, but it's also… it's distracting. I'm just so happy that sometimes I can't control myself, and I couldn't have that happening again."

"You don't seem so drunk." Rachel furrowed her eyebrows.

"I might have… vomited. But I swear I brushed my teeth!" The hint of a smile appeared on the brunette's face, and Quinn hurried to finish before what was left of the alcohol made her stupid with giddiness. "I heard you all night, and it was so difficult to just… do nothing. But I knew you were okay, that was the only reason I didn't go with you. And I think… I used all my self-control to restrain myself; I really don't think there's anything else I could do to improve it. Besides… I don't think I could take another night like that." Quinn breathed deeply, biting her lip. "I miss you."

When Brittany and Santana went back to the room to make sure they hadn't killed each other, and perhaps hoping to catch them making out, they took one look at the bed and couldn't really say where one ended and the other began, tangled with each other in their sleep.

They decided it was just as good as catching them getting their mack on.

* * *

><p>The night on Friday was clear, no clouds and no wind. The air was still, the woods were quiet, and the only thing making contrast were two wolves running, trying to catch each other between growls, barks and whines. Some animals hid from them, others observed them from the top of threes or the safety of burrows.<p>

Rachel sometimes wondered if animals could sense they were something else, not entirely wolfs. Sometimes she wondered, too, if her dog could tell she wasn't entirely human anymore. Right now, though, all she could think about was if everything could be this perfect forever.

Her clouded mind didn't allow for such complex thoughts in a state like this, surrendering herself to Quinn because, surprisingly, she was tired of running. Quinn leaped on top of her to deliver a generous lick to her face, whining when all Rachel did was stay still. She could almost hear Quinn saying _"It's not fun if you play dead." _So she decided to stop with the human thinking and give the wolf instinct a chance to come out again, because she had plenty of time to worry later, but not enough wolf time to enjoy with Quinn. After all, they had to make up for last time.

Several animals passed nearby them, they could smell some others hidden not too deep beneath the earth, and they could sense when they flew low on top of their heads, but both of them were too preoccupied with each other. Having already tested speed –three times faster in getting from the clearing to the edge of the road and back– Quinn was anxious to test the strength they showed signs of improving in the last month; Rachel more so than her, what with carrying Quinn all the way to Brittany's house. They had tried to find a reason behind their improvements, the cause of their strength showing itself at its highest. Rachel had been able to develop it when the threat to Quinn's life had made her feel determined to save her at whatever costs, and Quinn's showed itself when she was frustrated and angry when trying to defend Rachel. It was no surprise now that their bond had been the cause of it, their strongest will of all –defend and protect each other.

Rachel had refused to test their strength by hunting, which Quinn didn't bargain because she was still letting Rachel do whatever she wanted out of the happiness of being with the brunette again. In the end, they hadn't decided on anything in a week, and the one that followed the strong headaches had made it impossible. Quinn had to miss skating and Rachel couldn't go to ballet, the headaches so strong they were starting to mess with their balance. Rachel guessed their bodies were still trying to get used to the new changes, and the headaches resembled the ones they got when they first started transforming every month.

But the night was far too perfect to be spent thinking, Quinn decided, as she tackled Rachel to the ground and sprinted towards the road once more. It was better to enjoy now and worry later, when there would be plenty of time. And when Rachel growled playfully, chasing after her, Quinn thought she agreed.


	16. Untitled 15

I'll be away for the weekend and I decided an early update would be better than a late one, specially this chapter… Hold your hats.

* * *

><p><em>Chapter fifteen.<em>

Only three words danced and bounced around Quinn's head when she rang the doorbell of the Berry household on Friday morning.

"_Are you blind?"_

No, of course she wasn't. Those words had come out of Santana's mouth two days ago as they watched Finn and Rachel perform a song for Nationals. (They won.) She'd been trying to hide her scowl by concentrating on Rachel's beaming face, but Finn kept obstructing her vision with his gigantic form and his stupid voice and… okay, she knew she was being unfair. He'd moved on, and the only times he acted more than friendly towards Rachel were when they had to perform and he had to put an _act_, but still, it was pretty hard to control her jealousy once it rose, it was the most challenging emotion to keep in check. Santana, of course, had noticed, and then she'd uttered those words. When Quinn asked her what she meant by it, she had just huffed and rolled her eyes.

No, Quinn wasn't blind, but had Santana just meant that Rachel didn't love Finn anymore? Had she meant more than that? That week was the worst week to think about those things. The headaches made it almost impossible to think about _anything_, really. But when Rachel opened the door with that beaming smile and those bright eyes and those warm arms and soft lips pressing against her cheek… Quinn felt her brain go silly. She may not be blind, her sight was superb, excuse you, but maybe she was a little… _stupid_, around Rachel.

The brunette pulled her in and dragged her to the kitchen by the hand, where Hiram and Leroy were watching the news and making breakfast. She dug in her bag for the vegan cookies she'd baked with Rachel last afternoon and set them on the island. Leroy was making the orange juices and Hiram was pilling toast onto a plate. Rachel turned around with the almond milk and the cereal box, and Quinn settled in front of her on a stool and started her morning duty of cutting fruit. It wasn't weird, really. Best friends had breakfast on their best friend's houses every morning, and their parents knew which jam she liked and how she liked to cut her toast… it wasn't _weird_. Was it? Quinn's mom always went to work early, and the Berrys didn't want her to eat alone.

Maybe Santana was just trying to mess with her head… it was pretty cruel, giving that she knew how she felt about Rachel, but it was Santana, so… She could admit that their relationship was a little out of the ordinary, but she really didn't have other best friends slash werewolves to compare. Sometimes she thought she saw something in Rachel's eyes when she looked at her, the way they were always so bright when they were together. Sometimes she would turn to find Rachel staring at her and she would blush and duck her head, hiding her face on her dark hair…

She realized she was staring and looked away, only to find Hiram looking at her with a small, mysterious smile, like he knew a secret she was a part of. Blushing, Quinn hid her face on her glass and looked to Leroy, who was quickly finishing his breakfast, barely swallowing his cookie as he kissed his husband's lips and first Rachel's cheek and then hers.

"Have a good day, Mr. Berry." She said shyly, receiving his usual playful eye-roll at her politeness.

"We should get going, too." Rachel announced as she hopped off her stool and grabbed both hers and Quinn's backpack. The blonde tried to grab her own, but Rachel swatted her hand away and then grabbed it, interlacing their fingers. "Bye, Daddy!" She said cheerfully after kissing his cheek.

"Bye Baby, bye Quinn." He smiled at them and Quinn felt herself blush, still not forgetting how he caught her staring just a minute ago.

Rachel slumped against the car seat once they were both inside and sighed. Dropping the act completely, she grabbed the Advil from the glove compartment and swallowed it without water.

"I'm dying." She moaned dramatically.

"Yeah, me too." Quinn sighed, turning the ignition. "At this point, I don't know how I'll drive us back today."

* * *

><p>Rachel's head felt more and more constricting as the day passed, like her brain was pounding inside of it, beating against her temples. She felt as if she wouldn't survive through lunch, and one look at Quinn at their shared AP History class told her the blonde <em>definitely<em> wouldn't. Quinn was paler than usual, but her cheeks were a bright scarlet, and Rachel could hear her breathing through her mouth. Although she didn't want to admit it, and even if it hurt her heart, Rachel noticed they got like this every time they didn't hunt the month before. Their bodies were used to the changes by now, they could handle their sight and their hearing, and their muscles weren't hurting anymore by the cramps they used to get because of their strengthened muscles. But maybe they needed to hunt in order to get that adrenaline that wired their bodies, otherwise they woke up more tired after the transformation and their bodies couldn't handle the week before, were too weak to handle the headaches and muscle pains.

When the bell rang, Quinn was hiding her face in her arms resting on their shared desk. Sighing, Rachel ran a hand through her blonde hair, gently scratching her nails against her scalp, and Quinn shuddered before whining and turning her head to look at the brunette.

"How about we go home, hmm?"

Quinn nodded, resting both shaking palms against the desk and pulling herself up. They walked all the way to the car, Quinn's arm around Rachel's shoulders and the brunette's arm around Quinn's waist, when she realized she'd forgotten her house keys.

"Lay down in the back seat and I'll go get them from my locker, okay?" At the blonde's nod, Rachel headed for the school again.

"Hey, where are you going?" Brittany fell into step with her on the hallway, resting her arm around Rachel's shoulders.

"To my locker."

"No, silly, I mean with Quinn."

"Oh, um… she's not feeling so well, so I'm taking her home."

"What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing serious, Britt, just a stomachache. "

"Oh." Brittany's face brightened considerably. "You should just give her tons of lady kisses; those always make me feel better."

"Wha –um… I don't…" Rachel straightened from picking up her keys from the floor, blushing profusely. "I'm not sure Quinn would want them, I mean, it's not –we don't –"

Brittany gave her a pitiful look.

"Oh, Rach." She patted her head with one hand and Rachel frowned. "_Of course_ she'll want them. She'll love them!"

"Um… actually, I don't think –"Rachel cleared her throat.

"She'll love your lady kisses because she loves _you_!" The blonde beamed, as if she was just talking about the lovely weather while Rachel felt her heart rise to her throat and then lower to her stomach, bouncing up and down.

"Of course, I mean, she's my best friend, but it's not the same as, as–"

"She's – in – love – with - you." Brittany said very slowly, bowing to look at Rachel straight in the eyes. Then she straightened and beamed once more. "She told us when she was drunk. So trust me, _lady kisses_."

Rachel watched her leave bouncing down the hallway, as if she just didn't… didn't say… She closed her mouth, reach down for her keys on the floor once more, and numbly walked out of the school. Once in the parking lot, Rachel froze on her spot, unable to walk past the two cars that separated her from Quinn's. Had that really just happened? Had Brittany actually understood what Quinn might have _possibly_ told her when she was drunk? The pounding of her heart inside of her body –all over her, was now accompanied with tingles. Her hands shook, and her head felt like it was cracking right in the middle. Now was really _not _a good time to be having such a revelation. A revelation that maybe… Rachel bit her lip to stop herself from grinning to wide, or possibly _cry_. She didn't want to get her hopes up, what if Britt just misunderstood? But… no. Something inside of her, that pull in her chest every time she looked at Quinn, every time she caught her looking back, every time she made her blush, those times when she wanted a hug, or a kiss on the cheek, and Quinn beat her to it, as if they were connected… as if…

Rachel stopped herself from looking at Quinn until she was on the safety of the car, sitting on the front seat. The blonde was already asleep, curled on the backseat with a frown on her face. She was _so _pretty, Rachel wanted to reach out and smooth that frown with her fingers, or with her lips, and just the thought that Quinn might possibly let her…

She knew they couldn't talk about it when they were like this, barely conscious, if there was even an _it _to talk about, so she just gently woke her up without a word when they got to her house. Quinn extended her arms for Rachel to pull her up, and when she did, the blonde fell gently onto her body and hugged her lightly, resting her head against Rachel's. The brunette's body did all kinds of things inside of her, her stomach twisted, her heart clenched, she inhaled deeply, Quinn's perfume fogging her mind even more so… Quinn kissed her cheek softly, Rachel could feel the press of lips against her skin for a second and then the blonde pulled away, waiting for Rachel to lock the car and then grabbing her hand as they walked inside the Berry house and headed upstairs to Rachel's room.

It wasn't new, they had done all those things before; hugging and kissing and walking hand in hand, but suddenly it _didn't feel _the same. And when Quinn got under the covers, Rachel lay down as well, but she was stiff, suddenly very awake, almost wide eyed…

"Are you okay?" Quinn whispered, her voice rough and sleepy. She sat up shakily when there was no response. "Do you need me to get anything for you? Are you… cold or hungry or…?"

"No, Quinn." Rachel said softly. She suddenly didn't know why she was so nervous. It was just Quinn… who took care of her, and protected her, and loved her. How could she have been so blind? "Let's just rest."

The blonde frowned, but Rachel relaxed against the bed and under the covers and so she followed. Rachel sighed deeply, turned her head to look at Quinn and smiled.

"Come here." She opened her arms and, like a magnet, Quinn settled between them and against her. Rachel tangled both hands in blonde hair. "Are _you_ okay?"

"Yeah, we should… just sleep." Her eyes were drifting shut as she spoke.

Rachel smiled and bowed her head to kiss Quinn's cheek. When it landed right in the corner of her mouth, she figured Quinn wouldn't mind.

* * *

><p>Quinn felt a different kind of adrenaline at seeing her wolf ran up to her. There was something on the air around them, it didn't smell or feel different, but it was there, like a change of energy, if such thing were possible. She wondered for a fleeting second about what they were going to do, but everything flew from her mind once Rachel reached her. They greeted as usual, perhaps a little more enthusiastically, and that made her think that perhaps her wolf felt the change as well.<p>

She followed her running to the clearing, growling playfully at her at first, but Rachel seemed on a more serious mood, if her posture when they stopped was any indication. She seemed to be listening intently, but… it couldn't be. Quinn approached her and nudged her muzzle against Rachel's with a little whine, and her wolf surprisingly licked her face in response, letting her tongue fall to the side afterwards. It looked like the closest thing to a smile they would ever get to do, and Quinn felt the rush of adrenaline all over again. She mimicked Rachel's position, straining her ears to the sounds between the woods, although she wouldn't act on anything unless her wolf did it first.

They spent a fair amount of time there, the wind was blowing softly and the grass was greener than ever, but not even the good weather seemed to make animals get out of their hidings. Quinn lay down after a while, still alert but relaxing her body. If they didn't find anything, it wasn't such a problem for her.

She was watching a firefly with more attention that she would have normally, just to have something to do, when she felt Rachel straightened beside her. Quinn stood up, alert, and could immediately smell it as well. It was almost like déjà vu, the way the coyote's smell flooded her senses, but it was different, because this time she could hold back. But Rachel didn't seem to be thinking the same, and took the lead in the chasing that was usually reserved for Quinn, just because the golden wolf was always the first to lose control. It wasn't like that, this time, because every single one of the dark wolf's moves was calculated and deliberate. Quinn followed her a hair behind, forcing her nostrils and ears to locate their prey better. But Rachel was already ahead of her, running faster along the trees until she pounced. Quinn landed next to her a second later, and the coyote didn't have time to make a sound.

* * *

><p>Rachel woke up with the sun shining on her face, her back against the grass and something akin to heartburn all over her body. There was a second, as she turned around, in which she took in Quinn, laying wide eyed next to her. Her hair was tussled, her chest was heaving; she could hear her shallow breathing and smell every single scent on her body. There was earth, grass, a metallic smell of blood, the unique perfume that was Quinn, and…<p>

There was no time for the whimper to escape her lips as they clashed forcefully against Quinn's. She didn't know, couldn't think, of which one of them moved first, because her body was tensing and relaxing and burning all at the same time. Every single soft patch of Quinn's warm skin was suddenly against her own, pressing and sliding against her, and Rachel could feel her eyes rolling to the back of her head, making her hands clench unwillingly to the skin of the blonde's back, digging her nails in as Quinn's tongue met her own. The sound that left Quinn's mouth, entering her own, had her back arching. Quinn's hands were running up her back, to her neck, to her face, brushing her thumbs against every inch of it before cupping her cheeks and pulling their lips apart as softly as she could.

Rachel took in her eyes, dark and blown, and the heat on her face that spread along her neck and chest. The sun that shone above them as background seemed to serve as a halo, making Quinn look that much more like an angel than ever before, and her eyes managed to shine, even with her pupils dilated like that, as she searched Rachel's face, and then a devilish grin spread on her face as Rachel craned her neck up to join their lips once again. Rachel whimpered and exhaled, breathless, and Quinn took her bottom lip between her own. Her body shook as their breasts pressed together, and she couldn't have managed to stop, even if she'd wanted to. This impulse, the pull in her chest, it wasn't something she could get a hold of, but Rachel didn't feel hostage by the feeling, it liberated her. Her palms dragged down Quinn's hair to her back, never minding the dirt she left on her path, as Quinn dragged her lips softly along her jaw and down her neck.

"I love you, I love you." Rachel breathed out.

Quinn groaned, pressing her knees and her left palm against the ground, lifting herself to a sitting position and carrying Rachel along with her, wrapping her right arm around her torso. Rachel sneaked both arms around her neck and moved her legs to imprison Quinn's body between them, her head ducked to that pale, long neck and her lips reverently traced that faint scar only visible to them by now.

"Baby, I love you too, Rachel…" Quinn didn't know what to say or do to make that bubble in her chest, expanding and beating and heating, explode. The feel of Rachel's warm body completely at her reach, above and around her, made her dizzy, without any other possibility but to trace her hands down her back, around her stomach, feeling as its muscles quivered. She swallowed Rachel's gasp as she cupped her breasts, not missing the way her hands treaded in her hair and her legs squeezed her waist. She'd never held anything as soft as Rachel, as strong and fragile all the same when she relaxed against her.

But she could be more than delicate, raking her nails down her back as Quinn lowered her head to give into taste, feeling something akin to an epiphany when her tongue swirled around and Rachel released the most beautiful sound. She had to taste everything, everywhere; she had to make her produce that sound again, and more sounds like that, and longer and louder… soon they were on the ground again, and Rachel was on top of her and her hands were… Quinn's brain shot down with sensory overload, only managing to grasp Rachel's hips before the brunette's hands started kneading and stroking and caressing, and suddenly sounds were coming from _her _mouth and she couldn't stop them.

"Kiss me, please…"

The words were no sooner uttered and Rachel's lips met her own, softly and slowly. Quinn brought both of her hands to the brunette's cheeks, stroking them and keeping her in place. Her hips jolted upwards when their tongues met, and Rachel's eyes popped open, locking with her own. The soulful brown penetrated into her brain, sending heat all over, warmth of passion and of love.

Quinn took a deep breath and lifted her hips again, this time gently and purposely. She watched as Rachel's eyes transformed into something else, black coal and piercing as she licked her lips. Their lips met again, but Rachel's right hand stoked a path from the middle of her chest, casting goose bumps down to her stomach. Quinn shivered and her muscles jumped, but Rachel stayed there, kissing her softly and stroking her skin all over, down to her legs and the back of her thighs. She couldn't help the whimper that escaped her mouth into Rachel's when her hand squeezed her inner thigh, and it seemed as if Rachel had lost herself on the smoothness and softness and forgotten what Quinn craved, but not for long after that sound.

Their lips lingered millimeters from each other's and Rachel's eyes met her own before her middle finger glided inside, their gasps mingled in the little air between their mouths, and Quinn lost all sense of self-awareness when Rachel touched a place that made her body shook again. Her hands finally released the brunette's face, desperate to anchor somewhere to keep her from going mad. She didn't know if Rachel knew what she was doing, but it definitely seemed like it. Quinn couldn't help to lift and rotate and thrust her hips to keep the pace and not have their skin away for a second as her hands found security on Rachel's back, digging her nails into the skin under her shoulder blades.

"I love you." Rachel murmured to her against her ear, out of breath. "I can't believe you love me, you're so gorgeous." She sighed. "Do you feel good?" Quinn nodded frantically, trying to suppress _some _of the sounds she was making, but her body was not on her control now, it was in Rachel's.

Her right hand stroked down the brunette's back to her ass, making Rachel's hips jolt forward, and then around and between her legs. Rachel made the most amazing sound she'd ever heard when she cupped her hand there and felt the wet heat.

"Oh my God." She gasped in awe, her hips shooting upwards into Rachel's hand.

"Quinn." The brunette sighed, resting their foreheads together. "I've never…"

"It's okay." She breathed out.

Quinn didn't know exactly what to do, but she didn't dwell on it. She felt and explored and knew what the right place for her fingers to be was when Rachel released another one of those amazing sounds that seemed to make the earth quiver.

"You feel amazing." Quinn moaned into Rachel's mouth.

She wasn't sure what her body was doing, she didn't try to control it. She just knew they were moving against each other in all the right ways and touching and kissing all the right places. Every movement of their bodies, every stroke of their hands, every kiss and suck of their lips and every lick of their tongues… everything felt overwhelming, breathtaking, extraordinary. They mumbled and gasped against each other's lips, trying to put into words how they felt, what they wanted, but their bodies knew better in the end.

Their touches started to get more frantic and desperate as Quinn felt herself full with something about to explode, her body shaking and quivering. Her back arched and her muscles tightened, her lungs were deprived of air, her mouth fell open and her head pressed against the grass, her neck arching as well. The hand clutching at Rachel's back moved to the ground, gripping grass and a fistful of earth as she came. Rachel's mouth fell against her own, swallowing her sounds, and her brain felt dizzy from the sensations and the lack of breath. And suddenly, Rachel's hand moved from between her legs and held Quinn's hand on the grass, entwining their fingers, holding for dear life as she hid her face on a long, pale neck, coming undone after her.

Quinn slumped against the grass, her chest heaving, arms moving like magnets to hold Rachel against her. The brunette lifted her head a little to rest her lips against the underside of Quinn's jaw as they catched their breaths.

They were sweaty, with earth and grass sticking to their skin and dried leaves between their tussled hair, and Rachel never felt purer. She saw the blush that came from Quinn's face all the way down to her neck, and guessed the blonde realized what they'd just done.

"I'm in love with you." She declared before Quinn could say anything. "I know now I've never loved someone like this before, almost… supernaturally."

Quinn chuckled.

"I'm in love with you, too." The blonde said it with such naturalness it made Rachel tingle all over. "And I love you, and I want to protect you, and I think you're gorgeous, and –"

Rachel's lips silenced her, at least for a while.

"I've waited a really long time to do that." Rachel smiled shyly.

"I've waited more." Quinn bit her lips between her teeth, her eyes sparkling.

Rachel laughed quietly and the blonde tightened her hold on her torso, hiding her face in the brunette's neck and nuzzling her nose there.

"We're not doing that again until I take you on a date." Rachel stated softly but confidently.

"Mhmm." Quinn nodded, pressing her lips softly against the skin at her reach.

"Maybe two dates."

"Mhmm." The blonde dragged her lips from Rachel's neck up to her chin.

"Quinn, are you listening to me?"

"Mhmm." Her lips moved along Rachel's jaw to her ear.

"Perhaps I _should_ wait until I'm twenty five." The brunette bit her lip, trying not to laugh.

"Uh –what?" Quinn lifted herself up on her elbow, trying not to look scandalized at what Rachel had said.

"I'm kidding, silly."

Rachel's screaming giggles made the birds fly away when Quinn attacked her neck with kisses.


	17. Untitled 16

_Chapter sixteen._

Rachel broke her promise as soon as they got to her home. Quinn didn't protest, didn't even remind her they were supposed to wait until after one or two dates to do more than chaste kissing, and found that doing specific things with her mouth distracted Rachel quite a bit. They found that, once they could finally attend to their third option after the transformation –one that wasn't either sleep or hunger– it was a little difficult to stop. Quinn managed only when Rachel's dad's got home.

Rachel was another situation entirely. Despite the fact that they couldn't stop touching each other in some kind of way, afraid it would all be over if they did, Rachel never missed an opportunity when they were alone to attack Quinn's lips with her own; in their houses, or in Santana's bathroom or even at school. It seemed that, no matter how controlled she was as a wolf, it didn't translate to human when she was around Quinn.

"How do you do it?" Rachel panted against a stall door, fingers woven in blonde hair to keep her in that spot of her neck.

Quinn detached herself either way to answer, raking her nails over the forming bruise and making Rachel shut her eyes.

"Years of practice." She beamed.

"Are you rabbits?" Santana pounded on the door. "For Christ sake, Berry, you are _never_ late for Glee club. What have you done to her, Q?"

"Go away, Santana." Rachel yelled after covering Quinn's ears with her palms. Quinn chuckled, moving her lips to the brunette's cheek and lingering.

"Glee started fifteen minutes ago, if you don't come out right now I'll tell everyone what you were doing and then you'll _definitely_ come out."

The door opened to an amused Quinn and a frowning Rachel.

"Don't pout at me, Berry." Santana looked away.

"It affects her because she likes you." Brittany interjected, coming out of the next stall. Quinn gave her an odd look. "I was spying on you."

"Hey!"

"Yeah, yeah; let's go now." Santana opened the door, a little red in the face, and they headed towards the Choir room.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Schuester." Quinn apologized as they entered, following Rachel to the second row.

"There's no point in being on time when we already won Nationals." Rachel rolled her eyes, but Quinn knew she was actually really emotional about ending Glee, and was trying to avoid thinking about it.

"It's our last meeting, Rach." Quinn whispered, resting her hand on the brunette's. "I know you don't want it to be over, but let's best enjoy today."

Rachel ducked her head with a small, sad smile, and turned her hand to entwine their fingers. Quinn squeezed and they turned their attention to the teacher.

They all ended up in tears, of course.

Quinn's throat was too constricted to sing, as were most of everyone else's; but, as always, Kurt, Mercedes and Rachel took the lead, and she happily swayed in the background, watching Rachel jump to chairs and dance with her little skirt and pretty legs.

Mr. Schuester's speech was what got them sobbing in the end. Quinn couldn't imagine what her life would be now if it weren't for him, for the Glee Club. So many things had happened, incredible and impossible, and this group of people was her support, her family; they'd kept her safe and grounded. Having it over was breaking her heart, but she tried to stay positive, to think of all the good things that came from Glee, and her mind and vision was fulfilled with Rachel.

Rachel's eyelashes, vanishing impossibly inside her cheeks as she offered herself for a punch. Rachel opening her arms wide, carrying her voice around an entire auditorium full of people at Sectionals. Rachel's hopeful eyes when Quinn told her Finn loved her. Rachel's scream, asking her to stay alive, her fragile figure on a hospital bed, her boisterous laughter when Quinn complained about Twilight, her warmth when they slept through their headaches under the covers, her smell when she hugged her after weeks at Santana's bedroom, her piercing eyes when she found her lying on the ground, her playful barks, the soft skin of the dark circles under her eye after a transformation, the feeling of one of her hands in her own… of their lips pressed together… of her smooth legs… her sounds of ecstasy…

Quinn hid her face in Rachel's neck as the brunette sat on her lap. They were in the back of Mike's car, heading towards the only pizza place with an option for veggie pizza. Except the only thing Quinn wanted to do right then was to snuggle with her girlfriend as tightly as she could, and drown in her, and crawl into her bones, and possibly make love later until they turned into dust. Rachel's hand moved to her hair, scratching her scalp lightly. Brittany bouncing excitedly next to them was drawing all of Santana's attention, and Tina was paying them no mind as she talked to Mike in the passenger seat. Still, Quinn knew they wanted to keep their relationship on the down low, even if everyone knew what they felt towards each other before they confessed it to themselves, and Quinn was sure they'd be delighted to hear they finally did it. They would probably throw a party for them or something, but after all that happened, all she and Rachel wanted was peace and quiet and privacy. She sneaked her arms around Rachel's waist and just basked in the warm and soft perfection between her arms until they got to the venue.

Once they got enough tables put together to fit all of them, it took at least half an hour before they decided what they wanted to order –Brittany's pepperoni and pineapple was discarded swiftly. When the pizzas arrived, Quinn found they were missing two drinks and headed towards the counter. The woman behind it took her sweet time on the phone and Quinn waited distractedly, playing with her bottom lip between her fingers.

"Don't do that." Rachel whispered right next to her ear.

"Why not?"

"It makes me want to kiss you so badly." Quinn didn't know whether to squeak or melt when there were lips sucking her earlobe, but they vanished as soon as they appeared, and Rachel was heading back to their table with one drink in each hand.

She followed numbly and sat down at the end of the table next to Rachel. Everyone was chatting excitedly, talking about their holidays before college and their last minute arrangements, and Quinn listened to them as best as she could while trying to ignore the warmth of the body next to her, and her strong smell. She reached distractedly for a slice of the vegan pizza and Brittany eyed her curiously.

"We ordered the one with the bacon bits."

"No, thank you."

This caught Rachel's attention.

"You're not eating bacon?"

"Rach… it's _bacon_."

Rachel nodded, confounded.

"…bacon… it's _pig_."

Brittany's alarmed "_what?" _was lost on Rachel's amazed "Quinn…"

"Rachel." Quinn ignored both of them. "When was the last time you saw me eating something with an–"

The squeal that left Rachel's mouth drawled everyone's attention on them, just in time to catch Rachel's arms around Quinn's neck, her whole body on top of hers as they kissed.

Quinn's mind, already focused on those lips since five minutes ago, couldn't care less that everyone was watching as she kissed and hugged back, grinning against Rachel's lips.

After a minute or so, Kurt cleared his throat, because apparently everybody's gasps and exclamations of "I knew it", "Hot damn", and "Mailman" couldn't separate the two girls.

"One less speciesist, we get it, we're in a public place! Now, ladies…"

Rachel seemed to gather her common sense at that, moving her hands to smooth Quinn's hair, her eyes twinkling.

"Well, fellow friends, Quinn and I–"

"Save it, we figured it out." Mercedes chuckled, reaching across the table to pat Quinn's hand as she blushed to the tip of her ears.

Happily, Rachel moved to Quinn's lap, intervening on the conversation between Brittany and Santana about all of the foods that were actually dead animals while Quinn listened to all of them along with Rachel's heartbeat and breathing, as her ear rested against her girlfriend's warm back.

* * *

><p>There was an almost deafening silence in the room, in the entire home, except for Rachel's heavy breathing and heartbeat. Quinn lay as motionless as she could listening to it, trying to calm her thoughts now that her girlfriend had stopped crying and was supposedly asleep or on her way there. Packing had made them both emotional, but Rachel more so. This town, as oppressive as it was, held their memories of many years, almost eighteen for Rachel, and as much as it suffocated them and as much as Rachel longed for New York, Lima was still her home town. Quinn felt a depression to the core of her being when she thought of driving away from here, deeply related to the memories, to her baby, and most of all to the forest. They still had one last full moon in a couple of days, and then they'll be off. She was most excited for their future to begin, to fully let go of her past and start a new chapter, as cheesy as it sounded. It was that thought, most of all, that kept her sane. That, and the steady heartbeat she could her from below her ear. It had become her constant companion for many months now, it was as calming as Rachel's singing; sometimes she swore she heard it all the way across town when they were apart. Quinn couldn't imagine not hearing that every day now, and knew she would after they moved together in New York, merely twenty subway-minutes away from Brittany and Santana.<p>

A deep intake of breath distracted her from her thoughts as Rachel lifted her hands and rested one on her hair and the other on the small of her back.

"Are you awake?" She whispered.

"Yeah."

"I can't sleep, you're thinking too loud."

"No, I'm not." Quinn laughed quietly, adjusting herself more comfortable on top of and around Rachel.

"Yes, you are. What's going on?"

Quinn basked on the warmth of Rachel's body for a few seconds, of her fingers gently running through her hair, before answering. Not much had changed since they admitted their feelings towards each other, just bolder touches and kisses on the lips. And sex…

"Why did we wait so long before admitting our feelings?" She hadn't been thinking about that, exactly, but it had been on the surface of her mind for almost the entire month.

"We were scared, Quinn."

"Yeah."

"I couldn't even phantom the idea of being without you, I was so blinded by those thoughts I didn't see what was right in front of me, even when everybody else did."

"Even your parents."

"Yes." Rachel laughed, her body shaking slightly. "Even my dads."

"We had a good time either way." Quinn smiled.

"Except for the sexual frustration." Rachel quipped.

"Oh, you're taking care of that, don't worry." Quinn giggled. "For all the time we missed."

"You're not exactly complaining, now are you? Because I could make it to once a week, or a month…"

"You don't last a _day_." Quinn snorted.

"Quinn!" Rachel's palm connected softly with the blonde's temple, making her sit up the bed.

"Domestic violence!" Quinn cried, pointing a finger at her girlfriend.

"You were embarrassing me!" Rachel yelped defensively.

"Sex maniac!"

A pillow connected full on the brunette's face, muffling her scream of surprise.

"Abusive girlfriend!"

"You hit me first!"

"Immature girlfriend!"

Soon there was a mess of sheets, covers and pillows, Rachel pinning Quinn to the mattress by the wrists and kissing her forcefully on the neck.

"You… sex… maniac…" Quinn panted, trying to get free.

"This is not sex." Rachel grinned devilishly down at her, pecking her lips playfully.

"It will be soon." Quinn raised an eyebrow, lifting her hips and making her girlfriend groan.

"Oh, yes it will."

* * *

><p>Rachel didn't know what to expect on this night, but she could have never been prepared for the feeling that overwhelmed her when she woke up as a wolf. The need to see Quinn was so great, and her brain so very deep engraved with her wolf's scent that she almost immediately knew which way to run. Her footsteps rang among the trees and Quinn's smell grew steadily stronger, until she spotted her fast asleep almost right by the river.<p>

Rachel felt something in her chest inflate, drowning the sense of uneasiness she felt when she was alone and replacing it with that pull, stronger than ever, to be next to her wolf. She walked quietly next to her and lay down, her muzzle barely against Quinn's belly. She could hear her steady heartbeat and breathing, and could almost drown in her scent. She remembered feeling things were perfect just a few months ago, but how wrong she'd been…

This? This was perfection. The absolute certainty that she would never lose Quinn, that they belonged to each other. Everything felt so easy now. Decisions were trivial with the knowledge that she wouldn't be alone to face them, whatever they were. The future was much less scary. She'd had enough moments in her life to feel insecure, about herself, about her body, about the future, but those hadn't come in a while. Being a werewolf might have felt like a punishment in the beginning, but now it was more like a blessing if it meant having the strongest love she'd ever felt inside her. Of course, it would complicate things concerning her career, but she was sure they would be able to face whatever came their way if they were together. They had proved that in the year and a half it took them to figure everything out, and now that they had, they were sure nothing could come between them.

As Quinn woke up, Rachel moved to gently rub their cheeks together, earning a generous lick to the face. She could feel her heart pounding, and she knew she would blush if she were human. Surprised though she was, Rachel leapt to her feet to make Quinn get up as well. Their energy was pumping; she could feel it in her veins and radiating off of Quinn. They sprinted towards the road and along the edge of the trees. The night was as clear as it ever was, the full moon shined against the tree tops and along the way, the wind was light and fresh, and as they got closer to the town, they could feel that dread at leaving the forest disappearing from their chests. They knew it was necessary if they were to leave town a couple of days later, and Quinn barked joyfully as she felt it. Lima was quiet, the streets were deserted and the people fast asleep at their beds, but they still tried to keep quiet, it was a silly thing they were about to do…

They reached the Pierce residence at last, where the smell of the fresh concrete of the driveway made them want to step away. Brittany had mentioned to them that her parents had finished remodeling the garage and were finishing with the driveway today. Quinn thought it was a good idea to give them their thanks for saving her life, and so she carefully stepped on the concrete with one of her paws, her print neatly marked. Brittany's parents would probably think it was from a stray dog, but it was the best gift they could give them.

Quinn looked away to find Rachel sitting straight, looking up at the house. She moved quietly to sit next to her, whining a little as she nudged her head with her muzzle. Rachel rested the side of their heads together, and they sat there for a while. Quinn knew she was still a little scared of what happened that day, but she now knew the best was to show her, with time, that they were careful now, in control, and as long as they were together nothing like that would ever happen again.

Suddenly Rachel tensed next to her. Looking up, Quinn could see a silhouette behind one of the curtains, a dim light was on. Before they could even move, the window was open and the curtains drawn, and Brittany was leaning out of the window with her elbows on the sill. They stood there, staring at each other for a minute, Quinn with confusion and fear and Brittany with a small smile on her face.

"There's more clothes in the hamper if you get cold." Brittany whispered at last, and then she waved and closed the curtains, disappearing inside.

Quinn felt Rachel slump against her in relief, and she nudged with her muzzle. It was time to go. They walked quietly back to the woods, taking in their town at night, which seemed full of possibilities without the scowling man and disdainful women on the streets. Lima was actually really beautiful…

But much more were the trees and the river, at least from their point of view. Everything smelled like only nature could, fresh and wild. The leaves spreading oxygen, the wind blowing and carrying it, the water moving quietly and the animals, some sleeping and some staring wide-eyed from their burrows or the top of the trees, hooting and swooshing as they flew. Everything was alive, and Quinn felt like she could fully appreciate it now, laying on the clearing next to her wolf, feeding from the warmth she irradiated, enjoying the place for the last time. She felt so blissful she could fall asleep, which had never happened before, but everything smelled great, Rachel smelled amazing, felt amazing, was amazing, they were happy…

* * *

><p>Hiram started crying as soon as Rachel finished packing, Quinn standing awkwardly against the hallway wall as he pretended not to, covering his mouth with his palm to prevent them from hearing his hiccups. The luggage was enormous; Quinn wouldn't be surprised if Rachel had somehow packed her framed Barbra playbill in there, but the tiny brunette hoisted it over her shoulder and gingerly walked down the stairs to the hall. Rolling her eyes, Quinn followed behind her and they moved to the kitchen, only to find Leroy and Judy there, crying over their surely cold cups of tea.<p>

"Mom, please…"

"No! It's okay…" Her mother jumped from the stood, wiping the tears and make up from her cheeks and trying to smile. "We're just being silly…"

"Silly old people." Leroy nodded.

"Dad, you're not old." Rachel smiled lightly, moving to palm his back.

"You're going to c-college! Of course we are!" Hiram sobbed from the kitchen door, covering his face with his hands.

Quinn bit her lip, trying her hardest not to laugh as she exchanged a look with Rachel.

"Wait until you have grandchildren, _then_ you'll be old." Rachel joked.

But that seemed to sober them up.

"Grandchildren?"

"You're giving us grandchildren?"

"None of you are pregnant, are you?"

Quinn slapped her hand to her face.

"That's biologically impossible."

"Well, yes, you're right…" Hiram blushed.

Judy looked up to the ceiling and her body shook with silent laughter.

"At least they're not crying anymore." Rachel mumbled as they followed their parents outside.

Quinn's luggage was already in the trunk, and it seemed that Rachel's was going to be kept in the backseat, surely there was no room.

"Are your cellphones charged?"

"Yes, mom."

"Tank full?"

"Yes, daddy."

"Bellies full?"

"Yes, dad." Rachel chuckled.

Everybody seemed to be making an effort not to cry, then. Quinn moved slowly to hug her mother while Rachel was being crushed between her two dads, and then they swapped. Quinn felt a great deal of affection for these two men who were hugging her like a daughter, and she could see her mother crying as she gently wrapped her arms around Rachel.

"Okay…" Rachel sniffed, walking backwards towards the car. "We're… leaving now."

"Have a safe trip." Leroy called, wrapping an arm around his husband's waist and placing his other hand on Judy's shoulder.

They started the car, backed from the driveway and Rachel leaned half her body out of the window to wave at them as Quinn drove away. Once she couldn't see them, she sat properly, put her seatbelt on and sighed.

"You okay?" Quinn asked quietly, blindingly moving her hand and stroking her hair as she looked forward.

Rachel didn't answer, just took her hand on her own, kissed her palm and rested it on her lap, wrapped between both of her hands. They drove in silence, soon leaving the buildings and shops and reaching the trees. Rachel looked out the window at the almost blur of green and brown, and she swore she could see some animals peeking from between the trees, staring curiously. She didn't realize her breath had caught in her throat until they passed the Lima sign and Quinn exhaled loudly.

"We're leaving." She whispered at last.

"We are." Quinn nodded.

"I couldn't have done it without you." Rachel stated softly, bringing both her hands and Quinn's own to her face, pressing Quinn's palm against her cheek.

"You won't have to do anything alone anymore."

Rachel moved her face to kiss her palm.

"I love you."

Quinn smiled.

"Are you ready?"

"As I ever will be."

* * *

><p>I decided to post this today, and the epilogue tomorrow, as this story is ending now. I want to thank all of you who have read this, review or not. This idea came to me and I planned the entire story on one night, the base for every chapter was already on paper, but a lot of things came from suggestions or comments from you, so there's a bit of you in here as well… I hope you had as much fun as I did. See you guys tomorrow :)<p> 


	18. Epilogue

_Epilogue_.

Rachel rested her cheek against the cold glass of the backseat window; all the other windows open as her driver carried her trough the highway, fast to her home. Headache days were still awful after all these years, but combined with filming an episode for a TV series, they were terrible. She closed her eyes, imagining her warm, soft bed, fluffy pillows, awaiting wife and…

"We're here, Rachel." The car had stopped and the breeze gone.

"Thank you so much, Michael." Rachel said tiredly, resting a hand on her driver's shoulder. "I'll see you next week."

"No play tomorrow?"

"No, these are my couple of days off for the month."

"Alright then, see you on Monday?"

"Yes, Monday. Have a good weekend, Michael. Say hi to Nora for me."

"Will do." He waited until Rachel was inside the gate safely to drive away.

Rachel walked through the front garden, pausing after three steps to take off her heels and walk barefoot the remaining distance. It was late, surely everyone was asleep, and all she wanted to do was hide under the covers. She breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the smell of the flowers and the acres of trees around her house before opening the door, being immediately crushed by one pajama-clad beauty on each leg.

"What are you doing up?" She gasped as the two boys squeezed her.

"Mama's on bed, we was snuggling with 'er."

"You were? And where's your sister?"

"Still on bed with Mama."

"Oh, I see." Rachel smiled down at her three year old boys, picking Harry up and grabbing Tommy's hand.

They went slowly down the corridor together, both talking quietly with her because they knew that when their moms felt ill, they often felt ill together. They were two good, considered little gentlemen. Rachel put Harry down and opened the door gently to find her wife and seven year old daughter Priscilla snuggled under the covers, their blonde hair peeking out. Harry and Tommy ran towards the bed and climbed as best as they could on the other side of their Mama, earning a groan from her.

Rachel smiled, moving to her walk in closet and closing the door quietly, discarding her clothes on a hamper and putting her pajamas on. When she approached the bed, she found everyone pressed together, making room for her. Quinn smiled gently at her, one hand tangled on her sleeping daughter's hair. Rachel felt her heart pounding joyously inside her chest, like every time she looked into those hazel eyes.

"Hi." She whispered, awestruck.

"Hi." Quinn grinned foolishly, opening the covers for Rachel to climb in.

Once under the sheets and blankets, the brunette placed one kiss on her daughter's cheek and, leaning on her elbow against the mattress, spent a good minute kissing her wife hello.

"Strong headaches?" She breathed out once she got comfortable.

"Just normal." Quinn shrugged, reaching back absentmindedly to pull the covers high over their sons' bodies. "They missed you today; they were talking all afternoon about you, listening to your CD."

"They're spoiled." Rachel grinned.

"You're their favorite." Quinn retorted, faking jealousy.

Rachel laughed quietly; it was often what Quinn said about their sons, having been Rachel the one that met them and their mother on Liberia, on a Red Cross mission to take medical supplies two and a half years ago. Their mother Kia was dying from AIDS related diseases even before giving birth to them, and Rachel decided to adopt them when Kia died three days after her arrival. The babies' names were given by the nurses that took care of them and gave them their medicine every day since they were born. They hadn't been able to prevent them from being born with the virus, but today's medicine made it almost impossible for them to get sick because of it. Quinn had flew to meet them and travel back with them and Rachel two weeks later, and of course, their sons didn't remember any of that and were too young to understand, so it was impossible for Rachel to be their favorite just because of that.

They had found, two years after being in New York, that even if they were able to have children, which they were, it would be impossible for them to carry babies if their bodies transformed every month. Quinn had been devastated because, after giving away her first baby, she wouldn't be able to have another, but they soon realized that adopted children could be just as theirs as biological ones; Rachel was adopted and Quinn's baby was adopted, they already had proven how strong that bond could be. Priscilla was adopted three years after they were married; she was three and lived in foster care since she was born, and they had fallen in love with her as soon as they met.

Their family was perfect, in Rachel's not-so-humble opinion. They were everything she could ask for, healthy, beautiful and loving.

"Where did you go?" Quinn whispered, cupping her wife's cheek.

"I was just… thinking about our babies."

"Are you worried?" Quinn frowned. "Because the doctor said their viral load was undetectable, just –"

"Sh, Quinn, I'm fine." Rachel smiled gently, running her thumb along her wife's frown and smoothing it. "I know they're okay, I was just thinking about that. About how healthy and happy they are."

"Okay." Quinn breathed out, hugging their daughter lightly when she stirred in her sleep. "I have to go to the Catskill Forest Preserve in a couple of days, perhaps I'll take them. Have them meet the new cubs, have fresh air…"

"Fresh air? Baby, they have fresh air just walking out of the house." Rachel smiled. "But I think they'll love to go."

"Okay." Quinn smiled softly, squeezing Rachel's hand on her own resting on their daughter's torso.

"Want some Advil?" Rachel asked, watching the dark shadows under Quinn's eye.

She shook her head.

"I want to cuddle with you." Quinn whispered. "Let's take the kids to their beds?"

Rachel nodded, getting slowly out of bed and easily picking up her daughter. Priscilla immediately wrapped her arms and legs sleepily around her Mom and rested her head on her shoulder. Rachel carried her to her room next door and tucked her in, coming back to find Quinn with Harry on her arms, hiding her face on his thick, curly short hair.

"He smells so sweet." She smiled at Rachel when she caught her staring.

"They still smell like babies." Rachel whispered back, gently picking Tommy up and cradling him against her chest.

They tucked them in, pausing in the doorway to watch them sleep peacefully.

Quinn took Rachel's hand, entwining their fingers, and they turned to walk to their room. Once in bed, they snuggled right in the middle, under the covers, like every month for the past thirteen years. Their path had been rough at first, first being bitten and then taking almost two years to dominate their condition, to be brave enough to be together, finding a place to be as wolfs in New York and then finding a home to spend the full moon nights in peace. Being a werewolf and living in the city was hard, spending years sneaking into the New York Forest Preserve; suffering a week-long of headaches during college was terrible, finding a play that let Rachel have days off every month was almost impossible, and raising children was hard even without the werewolf part… But they had found that nothing was impossible or too terrible if they were together. Even with mistakes and fights, with the time that took them to find out they didn't have to hunt anymore, that repressing their feelings was what made them suffer those dreadful headaches all those years ago; with the heartbreaking knowledge that they could never carry children… the most frightening or distressing things weren't so terrible, so hard to face, if they were together.

And with the knowledge that they would never be apart, that they were soulmates or wolf mates or simply supernaturally in love, or plainly in love… the hardest things were easy, and the easy things enjoyable. Their love was big and their love for their children enormous… they were a family. And whether it was continents apart, countries apart, rooms apart or a tangled mess of arms and legs under the covers on a headaches week, Rachel and Quinn were, and always would be, unbreakable.


End file.
